However, while a somber mood largely settles upon Disintegration, the darkness is decisively leavened by a clutch of The Cure’s most accessible tracks, such as “Pictures Of You,” “Lullaby,” and “Lovesong.” Built around a supple groove and one of Simon Gallup’s most insistent basslines, “Lovesong” in particular remains one of The Cure’s most sublime pop moments, and its tender lyric (“Whatever words I say, I will always love you”) marked a major milestone for Robert Smith. Robert Smith may not have been suffering from the raging nihilism which drove him in the run-up to the latter, but the depression that descended upon him during 1988 moved him to write songs such as “Prayers For Rain,” “Plainsong,” and “Closedown”: intense, melancholic anthems garnished with icy synths, ponderous guitar figures, and Williams’ tom-heavy drums. Thematically and sonically, Disintegration was primarily a return to the dark, gloomy aesthetic The Cure had explored across their key early 80s titles, Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography. When The Cure eventually re-emerged, they did so with a pivotal album that many long-term fans believe still best defines their work. However, they were also intensely productive. It’s well documented that the Disintegration sessions were sometimes fraught, and that they culminated in keyboardist Lol Tolhurst’s departure from the band due to alcohol-related issues. Allen ( The Human League, Sisters Of Mercy, Neneh Cherry) at Hook End Manor Studios, in Oxfordshire, and pieced Disintegration together across the winter of 1988-89. After they demoed over 30 new tracks, the band joined producer David M. However, initial sessions at drummer Boris Williams’ home proved The Cure were keen to get behind their leader’s new material. “If the group hadn’t thought it was right, that would have been fine.” “I would have been quite happy to have made these songs on my own,” Smith said. As he later told The Cure’s biographer Jeff Apter, he’d even devised contingency plans to record a solo album if his bandmates rejected the morose new material he’d composed. His depression heightened by the fact he would turn 30 in April 1989, Smith and his fiancée, Mary Poole, moved to a new house in London where Smith began writing a series of new songs on his own. “I would have been happy to make these songs on my own”
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