The Cure’s First Album in 16 Years is Set to Arrive in November

After weeks of clues surfacing around the internet, the truth is out: The Cure are releasing a new album. Songs of a Lost World, the band’s first LP since 2008’s 4:13 is set to arrive on November 1. The tracklist will be revealed on their website sometime in the coming weeks, but the album’s lead single, “Alone,” is out now and linked below.

“Alone” is, according to frontman Robert Smith, “the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus. I had been struggling to find the right opening line for the right opening song for a while, working with the simple idea of ‘being alone’, always in the back of my mind this nagging feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be… as soon as we finished recording I remembered the poem ‘Dregs’ by the English poet Ernest Dowson… and that was the moment when I knew the song—and the album—were real.”

Songs of a Lost World has been teased for a few years now, stretching back to 2019 when Smith mentioned that the band had been recording nearly 20 songs. The album never surfaced, however, though the Cure were playing “And Nothing is Forever” and “I Can Never Say Goodbye” at shows and introducing them as songs from their next record.

Read Paste‘s ranking of the greatest songs by The Cure here.