Robert Smith says The Cure have three new albums in the works — and that they’d like the first one to come out this year.

He tells the Mexican newspaper Zocalo that two of the projects are already in the “advanced” stages. He says he wants the first music to be released for Christmas. He’s not certain whether that will just be a single or the full album, which has the working title Live From the Moon — which will probably change.

Smith has previously stated that The Cure’s next album will be dark due to the recent deaths of his mother, father and brother. He now adds that the second album will consist of “much freer pieces with a more pronounced, stronger sound,” and that he wants to record it in a live setting, He calls the third project “crazy…a noise disc, with different aspects and environments, all based on experiences on a stage or on my paths, in situations where noise is present and to which we are so accustomed that we don’t pay attention.”

40 Live: Curaetion-25 plus Anniversary, the six-disc box set featuring both video and audio of the two career-spanning 40th anniversary shows they played in London last year, will be out on October 18th. (NME)