You have to at least admire the humor behind the Cure's decision to name
its latest CD "Mood Swings." This is, after all, a band whose own mood
swings have historically veered between morose and disconsolate.

It's tempting to discount the Cure. The musical fashion for Limey dejection
has clearly passed. Booking the band into the spacious Bradley Center
seemed wildly optimistic. As it was, they drew around 7,000, well less than
half capacity.

Twenty years after the Cure's debut, hollow-eyed, wild-haired front man
Robert Smith still suggests what might have ensued had Gomez and Morticia
Addams decided to let Pugsley take guitar lessons. Buttressing the image is
a fandom liberally sprinkled with disciples of the Lily Munster School of
Cosmetology.

All those things are true, but they also sell the Cure short. However
cartoonish his excesses might be, Smith still knows the secret of
fashioning a simple but enticing guitar riff.

"Pictures of You," "Want" and "Just Like Heaven" are notable examples. That
gift gives the Cure a rock edge that Depeche Mode could never match.

The Cure also seems determined to broaden its palette. "Mint Car" probably
goes too far in rebutting the old angst. This tune rockets past joyful into
sheer giddiness:

"I really don't think it gets any better than this;

"Vanilla smile;

"And a gorgeous strawberry kiss."

One other usually minor thing worth noting. The Cure members aren't much as
showmen, yet they compensate with one of the most artful set designs seen
in a long time. At various times it evoked a wrecked roller coaster
decorated for Christmas, a school of sea horses, Mad Max's Thunderdome and
the lair of the queen monster from "Aliens."