Ceremony Covers The Cure

Speaking of Ceremony, if you head on over to the duo’s MySpace page, you’ll find a bunch of new songs, including a strikingly good cover of “Cold” by The Cure.

Originally released on Pornography, “Cold” is arguably one of Robert Smith’s darkest dirges, with glacial synths, creeping basslines, and lyrics like “A shallow grave, a monument to the ruined age/Ice in my eyes/And eyes like ice don’t move/Screaming at the moon/Another past time/Your name like ice into my heart.”

Ceremony’s take is pretty faithful to the original in both sound and mood, with gloomy keyboards and militant (programmed) drumming aplenty while the group’s trademark feedback sounds like the pained wails of a hundred anguished souls.

But the biggest surprise are the vocals. True, they don’t sound any different than on your typical Ceremony song, all detached and icy-like. But while such an approach always sounds cool, here it just fits, conjuring up a curious blend of detachment and angst that is quite fitting for such lyrics as “I was cold as I mouthed the words and crawled across the mirror.”