or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

When the late Aaliyah recorded “Age Ain't Nothing But a Number”, a song about young love and young lust, she was only 15 years old and singing someone else's words (R.Kelly's, insert your own age joke here). Dying at 22 meant she never got to see a chance to see how that rush of seemingly unstoppable emotions can fade and leave someone behind; broken, unsure and alone.

Hitting 30 is a peculiar event in that nothing changes except perceptions. Unlike an 18th or 21st there are no permissions/experiences to gain and no new big wide world at your feet to explore. You don't even have to personally subscribe to the suggested ramifications of middle age to begin to feel the weight of expectations. Everyone who isn't already there will remind you of the clichés anyway, especially people in their mid-twenties who still consider it a lifetime away. There isn't any logic to this onslaught of self questioning; it's like some form of socially (or should that be self?) induced cerebral puberty. For those still trying to figure out their place in the world there is a pressure in having to account (both to others and to yourself) for not pointedly following, or even being aware of, the path to your personal goals. You are expected to have already made your peace with your angry youth and to have taken on the responsibilities of adulthood. But for some, age brings with it the knowledge that there is no safety in adulthood, no real security in pairing off as the growing nagging doubt of the daydreams and yesterdays begin to fester away at the choices you have made. Those who genuinely do not feel the weight of regrets or truly don’t give a fuck about yesterday may not be able to empathise with Disintegration.

This, their 8th LP was written and recorded in the run up to, and released just after, Robert Smith's 30th Birthday and was put together in a conscious effort to create an inverse to both the pop smattered sounds of Head on the Door and the diversity and colour of Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me. It's common knowledge that Smith isn't the dour, suicidal, somnambulist loner awaiting death that he's painted to be; he has no boss, enjoys Snooker, drinks Lager and is married to his childhood sweetheart. Not exactly harrowing is it?

But Smith, here, attempts to portray how the state of monogamy is aberrant (title track) and the rose tinted memories of rapture ("Pictures of You" and "Untitled") can damage and taint the present and things yet to come. Worryingly for Mrs. Smith he chose to explain with even greater clarity the pointlessness and futility of devoting yourself to one partner on "This is a Lie" from Wild Mood Swings. These views contrast sharply with homely sweetness of "Lovesong", a song of almost nursery rhyme simplicity about what basically amounts to the worship of the woman who redeemed him. It's the words here that raise this LP out of what could have been a self indulgent exercise in middle class, middle aged darkness. I won't bullshit you- there are snatches of sixth form poetry with phrases like "bursting hearts in a blood stained sky" that can induce wincing, but it's easy to pass this over when you are faced with perfect passages like

Now that I know that I’m breaking to pieces
I'll pull out my heart and I’ll feed it to anyone
Crying for sympathy crocodiles
Cry for the love of the crowd
And the three cheers from everyone
Dropping through sky through the glass
Of the roof through the roof of your
Mouth through the mouth of your eye
Through the eye of the needle
It's easier for me to get closer to heaven
Than ever feel whole again

Smith, being a fairly stereotypical doom laden romantic poet at heart, doesn't grace us with his take on other worries affecting 30 year olds like being stuck in a shitty job or the issue of the expanding waistline. The lyrics, themes and title were set in stone before the style of music was even discussed with the rest of the band, so it was never going to end up sounding like Jesus Jones doing rural flamenco or something.

Disintegration opens with soft wind chimes which motion in the crashing black storm cloud intro of the hymnal "Plainsong", and for the next 86 Minutes (with the exception of the creepy pop of "Lullaby") the band paint the ideal backing for the lyrics. These songs were crafted around silvery subdued guitars, amongst heavy swells of keyboards and utilitarian Mogadon-spiked Stephen Morris style drumming. The breaking glass throughout the title track is an aural reminder that something broken can never be fixed; the cracks will always show. Confusingly a watery theme springs up on side 2, which to this day I’ve still never really understand the meaning behind. “Prayers for Rain"s bitter swirl precedes the late night storm effects on "Same Deep Water as You" and continues with the sea shanty accordion work on "Untitled" (which contains a line about being 'hopelessly adrift').

All but one of this era’s b-sides (I’m not including the live versions) were correctly ditched on the flipsides, as they strived to be as musically heavy without the lyrical/emotional content. But the melodic rush of “2 Late” born of the same dark sessions (find it on the “Lovesong” single) is one of their career highlights, and deserves to sit up there with “Just like Heaven” as a classic example of their melancholy guitar pop. Using this distinctive blend of sounds throughout Disintegration mothers this mood effectively across the entire LP, unlike the tracks on R.E.M.'s Monster where quality songs struggled to keep their heads above the same irritating guitar sound track after track.

Every Cure LP is always going to be another episode of the Robert Smith show, the playing (as capable as the players are) never overshadows his place in Cure mythology as the centre of attention. Simon Gallup is better known for being Smith's best mate and a rowdy piss artist than being a bass player of real any note, but with Porl Thompson's guitar work greatly subdued; it left a gap for the bass to carry many of the counter melodies to Smith's vocal lines. He only gets obviously dominant when duelling with the gyratory layers of guitar on the propulsive "Fascination Street", but for the rest of the songs here there is (for me) a surprising amount of subtlety displayed in his playing; a great understated and underappreciated performance.

Perhaps it was the supposed monochrome qualities here that led to their slow decline as a creative unit and the first death knell of the slurry “Friday I’m in Love” that came 3 years later. In an odd way, this track resonated with Disintegration in its nature: man old enough to know better than to act like a idiot half his age in the hope of reliving the past and reclaiming that imagined spark of magic, however embarrassing it may be. Stick to acting your age.