“It can be nice to go from a chorus back to a verse but have the same part come in on top of it. “I work out parts that work all the way through a song,” Smith told Guitar Player. Then there are the spiralling licks of Last Dance and Homesick, descending motifs that bounce around the perimeter of their respective song’s walls. Fascination Street kicks off with bubbling squalls beneath a delay-soaked arpeggio with gloomy intent. The symmetrical guitar lines of Prayers for Rain operate in simpatico with each other, navigating their own routes through the musical architecture. Often these contrasting parts work to cloud the musical landscape, obfuscating melodies and heightening tension.
“The only drawback to that is onstage it’s very confusing sometimes, especially with lots of phasing effects going on.”Īs the record develops, Smith’s fitful interplay with additional guitar lines, many of which come courtesy of expressive guitarist Pearl Thompson, develops into a prominent musical texture. “A lot of things that sound like heavy chorusing are actually just detuned instruments,” Smith later relayed to Guitar Player. Sometimes, however, Smith’s characteristic shimmer was concocted manually. When sculpting his guitar tone, Smith harnessed relatively everyday effects pedals, typically a trio of Boss units (CH-1 Chorus, DD-3 Digital Delay and BF-2 Flanger) with a hint of noise gate. This snaking riff suggests a glimmering melody. Led by an inviting synth sound hoisted from a Roland JX-8P, Smith unfurls a chorus-stained lead line, its tone orbiting high above the calm of the synth pad. The album’s monumental opening cut, Plainsong, sets out Disintegration’s far-reaching scope and presents an impressionistic melodic guitar approach that permeates its 12 compositions. So what do you do? After you have an album that’s No.1, what do you do? Do you do more of the same?” “For the first time I really felt the whole thing was going to stop, because I couldn’t see where we were going to go.” Smith told Rolling Stone.
During the 1980s, a smartly written salvo of expertly crafted singles had seen the band welcomed into the mainstream, and the brighter hues of The Cure’s 1985 LP The Head on the Door and 1987 album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me led to an identity crisis for the crown prince of goth. Nearing his 30th birthday, Smith reflected on a decade that had seen his teenage goth-rock outfit The Cure rise to modest fame and strengthen a devoted core of eyeliner-daubed, backcomb-haired fans.
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