A sharp follow-up to their passable debut, Three Imaginary Boys, is not long off the release of The Cure’s first album. Such were the times. There was a sense of adrenalin running through the band which has waned in recent years, replaced by an overwhelming urgency in their lyrics, which takes longer to find. The results are much the same as Seventeen Seconds in quality and tone, but so different in their tenacity and production. This second album from The Cure is a sharp moment, a step in the right direction for the band as they grasp their first major hits. A Forest may be thrown into the middle of Seventeen Seconds but what remains remarkable about this second album from The Cure is their confidence in world-building. Those crushing piano notes, the soft echo and cold feel to opener A Reflection is a tone they would build and build in years to come. This is where it starts to grow.
An album which establishes what The Cure would go on to do, and what they still do in great waves. A soft shuffle of the personnel and a continuation of a post-punk theme is what makes the difference. Confidence is crucial and it can be heard, building from the rather sloppy but endearing Three Imaginary Boys. Seventeen Seconds digs deep into the spirit of the times, with Play for Today dancing around the jangle-like elements of the music scene and deflecting, repurposing the band as an instrumentally slick, gothic-adjacent sound. There is nothing all that gothic about the imagery present in Robert Smith’s lyrics here – that would come later – but there are some leftfield observations which see the band thrown onto the goth-rock pile at this stage. A song like Secrets, the whispered and barely heard vocal lead buried by the bassline, is one of those production choices which hear the band further themselves as a post-punk outfit.
Seventeen Seconds does not just establish the long instrumental form The Cure would often build from but provides plenty of variation as to what they can do with it, and what they still create out of this sound. Secrets is a coy offering, a hushed tone to present those trusted mutterings, and it works tremendously. Their instrumental strengths continue Three to The Final Sound – a board of noise and clangs which works tremendously well as a stopgap between lyrical themes. Instrumental purpose and reliance are what Seventeen Seconds contends with. A creeping sense of gothic horror enters Seventeen Seconds towards the end, but it is just a suggestion, nothing that would overwhelm the hard work heard before it. There is a statement of intent from The Cure, blurred in with their instrumental understanding.
Smith takes a back seat on this release, but when he does appear for some lyrical spite, he lands it perfectly. This is the album which gives The Cure an indication of where their sound is going, in what influences around them they should listen to. A moody masterclass at times and at others a staggering experiment which moves the band further and further on from their Three Imaginary Boys sound. Their closing, title track shines a light on all those gothic ruminations underneath the surface of what is, at its core, a relatively sharp understanding of instrumental influence, on how the tones The Cure are best defined by starting with those demanding in-studio suggestions. Smith still gets in a few tremendous lyrics, but the focus for Seventeen Seconds is certainly on the soundscape the band can create.
