The Cure: "In Between Days" NME Review

THE CURE: In Between Days
(Fiction)

Three thoughts occur. One: how does he do it? How on earth does Smithy keep that face straight as he unloads these records? ‘The Top' was a schoolboyishly cruel - legs torn slowly from helpless insects - companion to the Bunnymen's contemporary and equally silly-sod-psychedelic ‘Ocean Rain', while his butter wouldn‘t melt 'Love Cats' routine was sublime, media-mocking TV. The man is a comic to be rated with Keaton.

Two: if I didn't believe New Order to be as rich as Tsars, I'd advise them to grab this record and their own ‘Temptation' and ‘Power, Corruption And Lies', and to hotfoot it to the nearest court of law. The monstrous scale, nerve and cynicism of Smith's plagiarism, in a world where most claim unique creative genius (Dahling), has, oddly, to be admired.

Three: either because of, or in spite of one and two, ‘In Between Days' - a sneeringly offhand debunking of all that Factory‘s finest seek so assiduously to mystify, is a good 45, easily the best of the week's pop crop.