A Film Canon

If The Cure's Gothic trilogy (Seventeen Seconds, Faith, Pornography) enveloped lead singer Robert Smith in murk, then Disintegration sees him breaking the surface, exhilarated by the touch of night air, but oriented for the first time as to the sheer expanse of waste glittering around him. This produces an unusual mixture of euphoria and doom, encapsulated in the opening track ("Plainsong"), whose refrain ("It's so cold, it's so cold") takes on an almost triumphal quality, and sets the stage for one of the most lavish, atmospheric productions of the 1980s. For the most part, Smith favours long, epic arrangements (up to ten minutes on "The Same Deep Water As You"), relegating lyrics and melody to the pulses of energy required for him and his players to continue treading water.