"I really don't know what I am doing here, I really think I should have gone to bed tonight..."

Unfolding with a low vocal singing over a layer of guitar riffs and chiming effects, WISH introduces the band's new studio album after 1989's epic DISINTEGRATION. Where the previous album combined long compositions with keyboards and ethereal guitar riffs to creat images of broken emotion and romantic depth, WISH adopts a more straightforward approach, the sound flatter, maybe a bit too much sometimes.

WISH is the album that includes the hit single "Friday I am in love" that became a sort of pop phenomenon and led the Cure to the top of the MTV once more. However it is interesting to point out that it was "High" that the band chose to release as first single off WISH (with the excellent "Play" and the heartbreaking, wonderful "This twilight garden" as B-sides), in an effort, as Smith told the media, to dis-associate WISH from the well-predicted catch poppiness of "Friday I am in love".

There's nothing wrong with being genuinely happy, and "Friday I am in love" is about sheer happiness, inspired by the late-night insomnias of Robert's wife. But WISH is not a happy album. It is a very emotional one, and even though the rockier sound and flatter production hide it somehow, it is a very sad record. About wishes that die, the years that go by, the youth that fades away. The loss of hope.

"Open" is a long narrative of a man who is caught in a party of no point, and he resorts to drinking (and maybe other substances) and self-hate to make it through... "it makes me sick to the heart, oh I feel so tired" comes as a resignation, sung all over guitars (three guitars recorded layer over layer) and a static, intense pulse that leads to the physical ending.

"High" is romantic and delicate, more superior than it's little cousin "Catch" from KISS ME, but admittedly inferior to the mastermind B-sides of "Play" and "This twilight garden". It's a convincing song and the video is interesting but the B-sides really overshadow it.

"Apart" and "Edge of the deep green sea" are two excellent songs that come next, possibly the heart of the album. The first is a harrowing, heart-breaking ballad of a man who whispers, a lover who watches day after day, year after year his relationship falling in a swamp, dying within silence and defeat. The only thing he can do is wonder "how did we get this far apart? we used to be so close together". It's a more direct approach than the metaphors and the enigmatic lyrics of DISINTEGRATION but it works equally fine-- and it hit's the bull's eye.

"Edge of the deep green sea" is another lengthy, muddy rocker as "Open" but the feeling here is much more intense and powerful, Robert's amazing singing rising towards the middle of the song, the break and the reprise leading the listener towards the end...and the edge of the sea. Robert's statement that this song is related to drugs is very interesting too.

The first side ends with "Wendy time" and "Doing the unstuck". Both songs are about a person who seeks joy, because he has felt pain. The difference between them is that in the first there is a potive aura, a feeling that things are coming up, whereas in the second there is only an invocation to an unknown source of hope, an attempt at redemption through describing the simple beauties of life and its secrets... Musically speaking, both songs unfold with very delicate synth lines and ever-present but not so distorted guitars, all led steadily by the rhythm section of Gallup and Boris Williams, who work as one entity indeed.

"Friday I am in love" comes along as the bombastic opener of the second side. Released with the more sceptic, melancholic "scared as you" and "halo" as B-sides, this was a massive MTV hit and introduced the Cure to thousands of American and European teenagers that watched MTV more than they watched the real world. A happy song, and sometimes you can only love it and dance to it, and sometimes you just can't relate to it.

"Trust" returns to despair as a rather edgy shift mood (another heritage from the mid 80s!) with piano entering the stage and slow drumming, like an ode to a summer that dies, or hope that fails short of surviving. Robert once more sings in his standard perfect manner.

"A letter to Elise" holds waves of depression as well, but here there is a sense of optimism, a 'possible' twist of future events that will bring joy, eventually. Elise can be an actual person or not, but it is through his letter to "her" that the narrator-poet-singer is able to express very deep emotions and make a statement about the truth that unavoidably hurts, when it comes to make a choice... romantic keyboards and distinct bass line from Simon provide color to the song.

"Cut"... now that's a song I don't really like. Too much influenced by the early 90s 'alternative' sound maybe? It could be, and despite the convincing performances, something here just doesn't feel right. Suede might be happy with it, but here it sounds "alien".

"To wish impossible things"....'but keep wishing' as the man himself said. A shivering Cure masterpiece with percussion that reminds of "The snakepit" and "If only tonight we could sleep" and violin, over dark keyboards and reverb that brings depth and an eerie sense to the song, as "all i wish is gone away".

The closing song, suitably titled "End" would repeat itself in the Cure's next two albums. I look at it as the grandpa of "39" off BLOODFLOWERS. Relentless drumming, grinding bass and loud guitars above which Robert's echoed vocals narrate the inner turmoil and the seeking of a purge, a resignation and inward anger as he pleads not to love him because he is "none of these things". A powerful song and an appropriate "End"-er!

The WISH album brought the Cure on #1 in the UK and #2 in the US just behind Def Leppard. The massive world tour saw the release of two live albums, SHOW and PARIS, the SHOW live video and the sad departure of Porl Thompson. It would only be a start in a series of unfortunate events. After the band recorded "Burn" for the Crow soundtrack, a battle of court began with Lol Tolhurst legally charging the band for withholding money owed to him and violating his role in the past. The trial lasted one year and led to the defeat of Lol who left UK for California and the beginning of a new phase in his life (as his Presence album didn't go too well), and the Cure went out of a one-year emotional and physical limp, with Boris Williams departing as well.

It would be the start of a troubled time for the group, that of the middle 1990s...but as far as this one is concerned, it's simply another Cure master album. Nothing less!

"a sense of fear creeps back in your throat
alone again, and it feels like a spiral
caught in between and you never come out
remember the poems whispered through the wind
and the inner silence"