THE CURE Vinyl & CDs

Review: It was the album, or perhaps era, that nearly brought the whole thing crashing down around the members, threatening to cut short what has subsequently become one of the most longstanding, celebrated and influential British rock music stories at the fourth chapter - when there was clearly so much more left to write and read. LP four from The Cure is arguably up there with the darkest of hours, a brooding, claustrophobic gothic pop masterpiece that laid bare, and still does, the struggles of those involved, and ourselves. Fuelled by heavy drug use and with the underlying uncertainty that disbandment was a very real possibility as a result, with Robert Smith's plummeting mental health and in-fighting only adding to the troubles, nevertheless, Pornography is a powerhouse album which approaches stark and universally poignant themes without apology, helping generation after generation understand that somewhere someone gets it.