In general, I will say that musically, this album isn’t very representative of why I personally like The Cure. Even the musical highlights here don’t actually lift me off the ground as some of their other tracks through the years really do. I enjoy 4:13 Dream better when I listen to it in “performance poetry” mode, rather than “amazing music” mode. For that, it’s worth revisiting, though I don’t like every song on it. But then, I don’t like every song on a lot of Cure albums, and on a lot of albums from anyone – and that’s OK, as long as things are generally interesting, and the majority of tracks appeal to me in some way (not everything speaks to everyone; but things that don’t speak to me may well speak to others 😎). I probably wouldn’t have been particularly amenable to this album if I’d not already liked a lot of this band’s prior work – it’s like with authors, you’ll give them more leeway after you’ve already enjoyed a couple of their books, and you’re more likely to be interested in anything they subsequently do that’s unlike what you liked before. It becomes more of a cerebral exercise then, rather than huge enjoyment and/or being really moved by something. All those things have their place though.
The Scream is a very good example of what I’d class as really effective performance poetry. And while I’m at it, and just because it’s the first thing I think when confronted with that title: