The cure 1981 album download zip

Reviews:

"Like Buzzcocks singer Pete Shelley's disco-literate solo debut Homosapien, this outing from the eternally breathless Pauline Murray represented a stylistic bridge between the new wave and the new pop of The Human League and beyond. With a timelessly chiselled Peter Saville sleeve adding to its reputation as a Factory release manqué, the clean lines, sparkling surfaces and elegant details of Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls bear the hallmarks of Joy Division producer Martin Hannett, and such stylishly unobtrusive guests as Vini Reilly and Buzzcocks drummer John Maher. Murray concedes that she absented herself from the studio for a time, convinced that she was losing control of her own album. Letting go, though, is a thrilling option on Dream Sequence, with Thundertunes and the Ultravox! Eurofunk of Mr X marking further giddy steps into the future. 8/ Extras include single tracks, a Peel session and a second disc of live material, while an extra CD appended to the vinyl edition boats an instrumental version of the album, and more proto-versions of key tracks" (Uncut, 11/)

"A futuristic but highly accessible record which didn't adhere to the industry conventions of group or solo artist, major or indie, pop or post-punk. It was - is - sublime" (The Quietus, 1/)

"Sparkling pop-tronica - 4/5. Martin Hannett's production wizardry echoes his work for Magazine rather than Joy Division, big on treble and clarity. Murray's effervescence is high in the mix with sessioneers Vini Reilly, John Maher, Robert Blamire and Steve Hopkins providing a tightly meshed springboard. European Eyes echoes Penetration's coarse energy, and overall it's rougher than the clean lines of Dare by the Human League (that was the other Martin, Rushent), but it's still the essence of pop, and non-album single Searching for Heaven is the finest of the lot" (Mojo, 11/)

"Accustomed as we've become to instant availability, the notion of the 'lost classic' has long since tipped over the precipice. Odd then that this recording - bar a limited 90s re-press - has remained doggedly unavailable. Taking stock of punk's dissipation and their own band's unravelling as the s dawned, Penetration's Pauline Murray and Robert Blamire embarked on a musical tangent, with Martin Hannett and a distinguished cast on board to craft a one-off album of darkly sophisticated pop tunes. Transplanting Penetration's twin guitar assault with Vini Reilly's dextrous fretwork, the cascading keyboards of Steve Hopkins, and, no least, Hannett's textural flourishes, Murray and Blamire were uniquely enabled to make an astonishing quantum leap from their past. Songs of emotional unease unfurl, striated with glimmers of fragile optimism, through the eerie opening notes of Screaming in the Darkness, the otherworldly pop of Dream Sequence and Thundertunes, and the claustrophobic soundscape of closer Judgement Day. Slipping through the cracks, both in terms of commercial success and Sister Lovers-level retrospective cult adulation, I'd argue this album is richly deserving of both. A luminous wonder which, as Pauline herself points out in the liner notes, can never be repeated. 10 out of 10" (Vive le Rock, 12/)

"Now expanded to two CDs - one of studio and session material, the other of various live cuts from early '80s tours - PM+TIG sounds enriched after all these years festering in a dark cupboard. Musically less raw than Penetration, songs like Dream Sequence, Shoot You Down and Thundertunes are cheery new wave pop gems that still sparkle thirty-odd years later, all given that slightly gritty sheen by Martin Hannett. Murray's voice is by turns expressive, wide-eyed and unique (comparisons to Siouxsie are unfounded, frankly) and suit the musical uppers and downers presented here. And there aren't many of the latter - Mr X, one of the band's obvious highlights and one of the greatest singles issued at the time, brims with haunting menace, Judgement Day recalls early Psychedelic Furs or The Cure's dimmer moments and Drummer Boy is a stark, spatial melodrama that actually sounds a little out of place amongst its heftier peers on here. As for the uppers, surely one song that should have been a single and a subsequent hit is Time Slipping. A slower, swirling, almost funky, dark-wave pop song worth cherishing, it's a great conclusion to side one (speaking in vinyl terms here) and acts as something of a centrepiece midway through the running order. I bloody love it. You also get non-album single Searching For Heaven and a host of b-sides including the pulsing Animal Crazy, a pre-cursor to earlier Factory attempts at indie-dance (New Order or Section 25, for example). The Peel Session is also all present and correct, with Sympathy almost bordering on indie-disco - in " (Flipside, 10/)

"Unquestionably a musical highpoint of this year or any other. An exciting new area of electronic pop where Motown meets the modern world" (Melody Maker, 10/)

"Murray and Blamire have produced something that's a mighty long way from punk. Lovely songs of anxiety, malaise and self-doubt. Pauline Murray sings of the love of love, fear of fear, or suspicion and retribution, and consistently captures the drama in a dream. Hannett's production is cracking, ornate yet never opaque, discretely echoed and gently warped to the point of hallucination This is sophistication, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. There is no pretence that a ragged edge of a discordant solo is the password to credibility. The music is wildly eclectic - look for Chic slick, Springsteen hope and glory, Wonder resource, gothic spaciousness, post-punk passion Murray's personal touches, the quiet fire of her bewilderment and almost lullaby-like disillusionment transforming it into a great work of passion" (NME (Paul Morley), 10/)

"Think of the most addictive Abba and the most positive Joy Division, and these songs have an effect somewhere in between, very pretty but very hard. Hannett's drum snap is there, but it's also among his warmest, most sympathetic works, providing the airy, breathy support a voice like Pauline Murray's cries out for" (Record Mirror, 10/)