The world’s best “Mastering” “Engineer”

It's likely a licensing matter. Capitol Records is releasing it in the U.S., and they need their own master for pressing. Bernie Grundman has a long-standing relationship with Capitol, and they trust his consistent quality.

Brian Lucey's role was to create a premaster, meaning he received all the tracks in their original formats and had to assemble and level everything into something that sounds like an album, preparing them for Bernie.
Bernie, at his stage of life doesn’t want to waste it on premastering The Cure.

The quality of the final master depends on the premaster, which in turn depends on the quality of the source material. Essentially, if the final product sounds poor, it likely stems from how the recording was done. For example, if Robert recorded everything on ADAT, be prepared for quality issues because ADAT tapes degrade faster than many realized at the time.

It’s got to be said that mastering engineers like Steve often get blamed when a remaster sounds off, but they’re typically bound by contract and can’t disclose that they're working with deteriorating master tapes tha are he