Paris

The Cure: "Paris" (Fiction)

It might be with a certain alarm that one greets the news that The Cure release their second live offering in almost as many months ("Show" being the other) if it wasn't for three factors.

Firstly, half of the royalties earned from this disc are being given to the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement in support of international relief work. Secondly, most of the tracks featured here are ones rarely performed live by the band and, last but definitely not least, thanks, perhaps, mostly to the wisdom of the selection of the tunes and the fine form of Robert Smith's sad boy vocals, recorded at Le Zenith, Paris, in October 1992, Paris really does work.

In fact for die-hard Cure fans it's a gorgeous treat and for other acolytes of the lukewarm or lapsed variety it might well re-recruit them back into Bob Smith's sometimes wacky, oftimes gloomy and always idiosyncratic world.

The Cure's deliciously thoughtful second L.P., Seventeen Seconds, boasting three of the twelve songs, is best represented here with 'At Night', 'In Your House' and an outstanding 'Play for Today' which rounds off an opening triumvirate of caterwauling arias initiated by the cacophonic couple 'The Figurehead' and 'One Hundred Years' (with a Hendrixesque solo tagged on at the end) from the morosely discordant and widely underestimated at the time Pornography.

'Apart' is partnered by the beautifully melancholic 'A Letter To Elise' from Wish and the former marks the point at which Paris changes gear and slips into Smith's especial bluesy moody pop songs.

The immaculate 'Love Song', of which I would buy a dozen different live versions if such a disc were ever considered, is the highlight of this second-half - although an extraordinarily enchanting 'Charlotte Sometimes' and a delightfully cheeky and even more intimate 'Close to Me' run 'Love Song' a close second for the prize for the most enticing charm that tinkles before your ears and lures you into a morass of pleasure.

Robert Smith's Cure can, at times, be infuriatingly whimsical but Paris, I think and I hope, will surprise everyone. It certainly does more than most to take the recorded concert genre out of the doldrums and make it a more credible art form.

• Patrick Brennan