Seventeen Seconds album cover
Seventeen Seconds

The Cure

1980
Fiction Records

Robert Smith himself has said that the Cure in many ways actually starts with Seventeen Seconds, and little surprise given the shift in scope and reach evident throughout the band’s second album. While elements of Three Imaginary Boys’s focus remain, both new bassist Simon Gallup and keyboard player Mathieu Hartley bring deeper moods throughout the album, evident on such notable tracks as “M,” the quick, nervous bite of “Play for Today” and above all “A Forest,” their lengthy masterpiece of romantic unease matched by a stellar arrangement.

Ned Raggett

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