![]() ![]() It’s streamlined and bound by hypnotic rhythm, a pulse driven by a kind of disoriented melancholy. Image or not, Seventeen Seconds does have style. The Cure were accused of having “no image, no style” by NME at this stage, which seems an ironic insult given the course of things. Not everyone warmed to the band’s new direction immediately-as is often the case with music so cold and distant. Which goes for the presentation of the album itself where their record label had chosen the track order for Three Imaginary Boys, Smith swore never to leave anything regarding his band up to anyone else from that moment forward. The textures are sleek, the rhythms locked in, and where its predecessor, Three Imaginary Boys, presented the chaotic sound of three British teenagers bashing away and making no effort to take themselves too seriously-a pisstake cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” and a song called “So What,” with ad-libbed lyrics about a cake-decorating set, will do that- Seventeen Seconds is a maturation, a harnessing of control. It’s not a dramatic album, certainly not compared to the harrowing experience of Pornography two years later, but rather a darkly minimalist one. If Seventeen Seconds-which is now 40-wasn’t the beginning of The Cure as goth icons, it was at the very least their journey through the frosty passageway that led there. You practically feel a shiver while gazing at the blurry forest image on its front cover, and the music doesn’t offer much warmth beyond that. It’s not a harsh album-the band barely uses any distortion outside of a few key moments-but it’s a chilling one. Recorded and released before Robert Smith’s teased-and-sprayed mop became an icon unto itself, and before The Cure became the Official House Band of Goth, Seventeen Seconds opened a hatch into a dark and dour Cold War bunker. Which is probably why one of my first instincts while on self-quarantine lockdown was to reach for The Cure‘s Seventeen Seconds. We’re all still in hiding, waiting for the signal that it’s OK to breathe the outside air again. It’s tempting to say it feels apocalyptic, but it’s more post-apocalyptic. ![]() It’s scary, sure, but more than that it feels eerie-as if life on earth just kind of stopped overnight, shells of commercial buildings left vacant and the occasional sighting of a neighbor scrambling to stay six feet away. Not that it really matters the whole planet has shut down and been directed to stay indoors as a result of a viral pandemic. The ground’s wet, the sun’s been AWOL for days, and the sky is a muted, murky gray. ![]()
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