Album Reviews8/10
How The Cure’s Faith Turned Their Sound Into A Moody, Unsettling Masterpiece
A look back at The Cure's 1981 album Faith, a dark turn toward atmosphere and melody over post-punk energy.
CLAY TRIBUNE / THE ARCHIVE
Category: Album Reviews
Records we have scored.
Album Reviews7/10
Cure Play Their Classics as Written on A Night Like This 2005 & 2008
A live double-album of The Cure's most beloved tracks, performed with ritualistic precision across eighteen tracks.
Album Reviews8/10
The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds Is a Dark, Romantic Map of Where They Belong
A look back at The Cure's Seventeen Seconds, a confident gothic statement that established the band's dark, romantic sound.
The Cure’s Pornography at 44: How the Album Turned Despair Into a Template for Indie Rock
A solemn record of dread and despair, wherein The Cure forego the light and dwell amid shadows and sorrow.
Album Reviews8.4/10
The Cure’s ‘The Top’: Ambition, Unevenness, and One of Their Most Interesting Albums
A record of contradiction: a dark, ambitious work wherein ambition and discord contend within one soul.
Album Reviews7/10
Thirty Years On, The Cure’s Wild Mood Swings Still Can’t Shake Its Singles-and-Filler Formula
A review of The Cure's 1996 double album Wild Mood Swings, weighing its strong singles against its weaker filler.
Sixteen Years On, Sufjan Stevens Still Rewards Patience on The Age of Adz
A record of memory, technology, and longing, wherein Sufjan Stevens bridges pop and strangeness with a bold, sprawling vision.
Album Reviews7.2/10
Nine Years On, Planetarium Still Sounds Like Sufjan Stevens Reaching For The Stars
A suite of seventeen songs about the planets, wherein a solitary wanderer seeks wisdom amid the vastness of space.
Album Reviews7/10
Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois Review: 7/10 — Flawed But Essential Portrait of a State
A sprawling portrait of Illinois, from Chicago to its darkest legends, rendered in song and silence.
Album Reviews8/10
Sufjan Stevens’s Convocations Turns Grief Into Silence — 8/10
A record of grief without words, piano and strings bearing the weight of loss across forty-nine tracks.
Album Reviews8/10
‘Let England Shake’: PJ Harvey’s War Record Still Rewards Attention
A review of PJ Harvey's 'Let England Shake,' a grim, stripped-down album about a nation lost to war.
Album Reviews7.9/10
PJ Harvey Maps Washington’s Monuments and War on The Hope Six
A song cycle of Washington, D.C.'s monuments and military halls, told quietly and with sorrow.