The Cure – the Cure
2004 Geffen/I Am Recordings 11 tracks 51 minutes
Remember on Bloodflowers that song "39".  It says "the flame has gone out" or something similar to it.  Well that is true in so many ways.  If The Cure is the new sound and direction they're taking, they have indeed put the flame out on anything resembling the Cure up to 2000. The music is generic and not much different than anything else you can hear on american corporate rock radio. The mixing job is horrible, the sounds of the guitars/effects are cheesy 90's metal/grunge sounding.  The lyrics are tired. The only thing that resembles the cure that had built a large cult like following is Robert's vocals. At some points passionate. But mostly tired and mixed too loudly (as I’ve mentioned before). A couple tracks sounds like it could have been written by GNR after they've listened to the Cure.  If you like the Cure because they were a brilliant band that put out interesting songs with depth, sometimes emotion and amazing layered keys, guitars with cool melodic bass lines.  You most definitely won't like this disc because all of that is missing and replaced with generic guitar chords, keyboards so far back into the mix you can't hear it and no depth at all to any of the songs.  The End of the World is the first single and it sounds like a tired re-hashed version of Mint Car or Cut Here, the two most despised singles from this band, and that's as close to the cure as this album gets.  It has more similarities to 311 or other frat rock bands than anything the Cure has ever done. If you thought Wild Mood Swings was a low point for the band, it was a masterpiece in comparison.

Brendan Murray – Animation
2003 Naninani Recordings 4 tracks 29 minutes
This disc is nearly silent ambient, possibly built from concrete or found sounds.    It’s definitely a background oriented disc & impossible to hear on headphones over the voices of your co-workers.  There’s something to it that reminds me of the town of Aarhus.  It’s soothing & I bet time travel sounds like this.