The Cure Make Triumphant Return With First Song In 16 Years: Listen

The Cure are officially back with their first new music in 16 years. On Thursday (September 26), the band released "Alone," an ethereal, nearly 7-minute-long track that builds up slowly before Robert Smith's vocals come in around the halfway mark. The post-punk icons also confirmed a new album, Songs of a Lost World, which is the follow-up to 2008's 4:13 Dream.

“It’s the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus,” Smith said about "Alone." “I had been struggling to find the right opening line for the right opening song for a while, working with the simple idea of ‘being alone,’ always in the back of my mind this nagging feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be… as soon as we finished recording I remembered the poem ‘Dregs’ by the English poet Ernest Dowson… and that was the moment when I knew the song – and the album – were real.”

"Alone" was one of several new songs The Cure live-debuted last year during their first North American tour in seven years. Songs of a Lost World is slated for a November 1 release. Listen to "Alone" below.