Though The Cure started off as an odd offshoot of the British punk scene, and quickly became the unwilling standard bearers of a certain morose post-punk scene, over the last thirty or so years they have perfected a style that can only be described as “Cure-music.” You simply know it when you hear it. 4:13 Dream is a particularly insistent version of Cure-music; though the songs alternate a bit between the darkly emotive (”Underneath the Stars,” “The Hungry Ghost”) and the dangerously manic (”Freakshow,” “Sleep When I’m Dead”), the album is lean, vibrant, and almost spoiling for a fight. Though this is likely to disappoint fans of the band’s sprawling gloomfests and death-defying dirges, taken on its own merits it makes for tight, compact listening experience. 4:13 Dream won’t bump Pornography or Disintegration off anyone’s list of desert island discs, but it is an amiable record that displays the continued relevance of the sound that is uniquely The Cure’s: that unmistakable guitar tone, Robert Smith’s lost boy yowl, the bass line that always manages to slip into the lead. While at this point it is all formula, perhaps even a veritable sonic institution, it’s still a formula that is hard to argue with.

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