Finally! Fans have been waiting for a remastered and repackaged version of The Cure’s classic Wish for years, and it has arrived at long last as a three-CD set, featuring the remastered album alongside the now-typical assortment of demos and remixes. While there are those who might bemoan the absence of b sides in such a package, the excellent Join The Dots compilation filled in that side of the story, and so the album is fleshed out with an intriguing assortment of instrumentals, home demos and unreleased remixes, making this something of a must for fans, especially those who have been collecting the previous deluxe reissues.
The Set
Speaking of the previous sets, just like its forebears (with the exception of Disintegration), Wish arrives in a handsome, glossy digi-pack complete with 24-page booklet. I’m not convinced about the wisdom of these, as the third disc inevitably finds itself getting scuffed, stuck as it is in the sleeve rather than in a dedicated plastic tray. It’s a minor gripe to be sure, but I’d much prefer the fat box approach of Disintegration. Otherwise, the set features a nice interview with Robert Smith, full lyrics, detailed track list and period photographs.
Disc 1
Of the album Wish, much has been written and it has lost none of its haunting power in the intervening years since its release. Those who found the juxtaposition of darker numbers such as Apart with poppier fare such as Friday I’m In Love clearly weren’t paying attention when the band dropped Lullaby right into the middle of Disintegration, and there’s a sense throughout Wish that the band were having at least some fun exploring the soundscapes of that strangely successful glimpse into a heart of darkness. Thus, for every High (a svelte tune that grabs the listener as they tumble out of Open’s glistening ice tail), there’s a feedback-strewn track like From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, which pitches urgent piano and blazing guitar into the dark mists of the band’s inner turmoil. As such, those lighter moments – the funky guitar figures and “doo doo doos” of Wendy Time, for example, are necessary, allowing the listener some respite, even if the darkness is never lurking too far behind. There’s also a sense of the band harking back to their earlier, poppier material, although the frantic guitar that dominates the record gives things a tougher edge more representative of the period.
Let’s be honest, though, Although the band’s chart successes and various greatest hits compilations would suggest otherwise, The Cure’s greatest skill was in writing albums that flowed beautifully. The merely curious may remember Lovecats, Lullaby or Friday I’m In Love, but ardent Cure followers know that the real pleasure of the band is in sinking into the album and letting it ebb and flow, with the pop numbers so deftly woven into the fabric of the album as a whole, that they never sound out of place. Thus, Robert Smith allows the lovely Friday I’m In Love to emerge from the crunchy Doing The Unstuck, before dropping the listener back into the void with the reflective beauty of Trust. It’s that all-too-often unsung skill that has made The Cure one of the most quietly loved bands in the world, bridging the independent and the commercial with a passion and an intelligence that retains the power to surprise and delight even some thirty years later.
In terms of the remaster, while Robert Smith ranks it as his version, finally allowed to step out into the light, there is little here that will be revelatory for the listener. Wish was always a strong album, and it remains so here, but it is good to have an artist approved version at long last.
Disc 2
Like previous special editions, the focus of disc 2 is very much on Robert Smith’s journey towards the album and so it comes stuffed with a mix of band and instrumental demos. However, far from simply showcasing the album in rough form, the disc includes the demos for five b sides and nine unreleased tracks, which showcases just how prolific a period this was. As a result, these pieces left unfinished provide the disc with a greater replay factor than it might appear at first glance.
The disc opens with four full demos, the first of which (The Big Hand) would go on to provide the 7” of A Letter To Elise with its b side. A touch keyboard heavy perhaps, it’s nevertheless a cracking Cure tune and a reminder that the band’s quality control was such that the line between b side and album track was always wafer thin. The demo Cut (a.k.a Away) offers an interesting take on the song, with echoing guitar noise showing that the band’s artier instincts were firmly to the fore from the outset. In contrast, there’s a vulnerability to the demo of Letter To Elise that loses something amidst the lush production of the final release. The final full demo captures the band figuring out the funky guitar parts of Wendy Time, clearly fighting the instinct to take the track in a darker, more Disintegration direction.
As noted, the remaining demos are instrumental, but as many of the pieces are unfinished works that have languished in The Cure’s vaults, fans will find themselves eagerly exploring what might have been had, for example, T7 been taken to fruition. A short piece, complete with border-line industrial percussion, it’s a shame it was never fleshed out, and the same could be said for the contemplative Abetabw, a brooding track built around a creeping bassline. There are even some surprises, like the moody T8, a piece that neatly anticipated the sound of bands like Strangelove a good few years before they emerged; or the crunchy Heart Attack, which would have produced a very different Wish had the band pursued it.
While casual listeners may not choose to listen to this disc regularly, for fans of the band, the biggest revelation is that The Cure could have made multiple versions of Wish, each radically different from the other. The wealth of viable material is nothing short of astonishing, and the disc provides a genuinely interesting look beneath the album’s hood as a result, especially when combined with Robert’s detailed liner notes.
Disc 3
Focusing on mixes, disc 3 gathers together tracks from the Lost Wishes cassette, a pair of unreleased tracks and various 12” mixes. At the risk of a pun, it’s something of a mixed bag, with some of the mixes vastly more successful than others. The highlight of the set is undoubtedly the four instrumental tracks from the mail order only cassette EP, Lost Wishes, none of which have appeared on any other format in the intervening years. Of these tracks, the gorgeous Uyea Sound (Dim-D Mix) proves to be an immersive piece, with subtle piano and reverb drenched guitar, reminiscent of the soundtrack work Pink Floyd undertook on Obscured By Clouds. Next up, Cloudberry (Dim-D Mix) is more typically Cure-esque, a layer of gentle melancholy settling over the gorgeously phrased bass, albeit given a hint of hope in the sparkling lead guitar work. Off To Sleep (Dim-D Mix) is a shorter piece, that drifts dreamily along in its own haze, only for the surprisingly visceral The Three Sisters (Dim-D Mix) to snap the listener back to reality with a heavily phased track reminiscent of Disintegration. A previously unreleased instrumental take on A Wendy Band follows, which has a darkness that is all its own, before we head into remix territory. Of these, fans will be most intrigued by a previously unreleased, and surprisingly engaging, mix of From the Edge Of The Deep Green Sea.
The remaining mixes are culled from various 12” singles, neatly fleshing out the story began with Mixed Up. As might be expected, they vary fairly substantially in quality, with tracks like Open (Fix Mix) proving to be decent companion pieces to the original tracks, while High (Higher Mix) edges into Banco De Gaia territory, albeit hampered by the juxtaposition of The Cure’s more sanguine tones. An extended mix of Doing The Unstuck is another high point, only for a remix of Friday I’m In Love to render the song in a style custom made for looking out of a window at the pouring rain. Fortunately, the disc closes with a chunky remix of A Letter To Elise and a strong live take on End, bringing things to a decent close, although it’s not a CD I’d play often without the skip button to hand.
Conclusion
Wish – 30th Anniversary Deluxe is something of an essential release for Cure fans, as it gathers almost the whole story of an album that is, perhaps, overlooked in comparison to the likes of Disintegration. The remaster may not reveal much that fans did not already know, but the second disc, stuffed with unreleased gems, shows just how different things could have been had The Cure followed a different muse. The third disc then completes the story, and although the quality here fluctuates, it’s great to have such a wealth of material brought together in one coherent package. Overall, this is a well thought out deluxe package that is well worth owning. 8/10
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