Cure Bloodflowers CD

The Cure: Robert Smith (vocals, guitar, keyboards, 6-sting bass); Perry Bamonte (guitar, 6-string bass); Roger O'Donnell (keyboards); Simon Gallup (bass); Jason Cooper (drums, percussion).
Recorded at St. Catherine's Court, Avon, and Rak Studio 3, London, England.
BLOODFLOWERS was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.
The Cure edged into new territory with Wild Mood Swings, but nevertheless drew scorn from certain quarters because it eschewed goth rock for pop, both pure and twisted. For 2000's Bloodflowers, Robert Smith decided to give the people what they wanted: a classic Cure album, billed as the third part of a trilogy begun with Pornography and continued with Disintegration. That turns out to be more or less true, since Bloodflowers boasts all of the Cure's signatures: stately tempos, languid melodies, spacious arrangements, cavernous echoes, morose lyrics, keening vocals, long running times. If that's all you're looking for, Bloodflowers delivers in spades. If you want something transcendent, you're out of luck, since the album falls short of the mark, largely because it sounds too self-conscious. As one song segues into the next, it feels like Smith is striving to make a classic Cure record, putting all the sounds in place before he constructs the actual songs. That makes for a good listening experience, especially for fans of Disintegration, but it never catches hold the way that record did, for two simple reasons: there isn't enough variation between the songs for them to distinguish themselves, nor are there are enough sonic details to give individual tracks character. While Disintegration had goth monoliths, it also had pristine pop gems and elegant neo-psychedelia; with a couple of exceptions, the songs on Bloodflowers all feel like cousins of "Pictures of You." The album is certainly well made, and even enjoyable; however, its achievement is a bit hollow, since it never seems like Smith is pushing himself or the band. Nobody else can come close to capturing the Cure's graceful gloom, but it's hard to shake the suspicion that Bloodflowers could have been something grand if he had shaken up the formula slightly. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
With BLOODFLOWERS, Robert Smith and the boys give sway to the most shoegazery elements of their eternally languid arsenal to often stunning effect. Evoking memories of similar classics such as PORNOGRAPHY and DISINTEGRATION, the Cure's first effort of the 21st century simmers with serene seamless disorder as Smith lays his usual mixture of lyrical sorrow and delight upon a bed of ambient landscapes. While the terrain is somewhat familiar, the echoing guitars; the lush, alluring keyboards; and the sensually pleading vocals that so unmistakably characterize any Cure album are welcome friends.
The air of tranquillity that permeates BLOODFLOWERS is set from the first minutes of the album as "Out of This World" breezes in with a gentle two-minute intro before Robert Smith drops by to ask "will we really remember how it feels to be this alive?" The group proceeds to drift through a quietly enthralling set of nine songs. Smith and company do pick up the pace momentarily on the beautifully buoyant plea of "Maybe Someday," but even that is an ode to reflection. BLOODFLOWERS is a welcome return to the Cure's ongoing meditation on discontent.Entertainment Weekly (2/18/00, p.86) - "...[a] poignant song cycle, on which introspective numbers speak of endings and departures with a resonant midlife melancholy - and an implicit sense of hope - making this one of the band's most affecting works." - Rating: A-
Q (3/00, p.102) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...[It's in] every crotchet a Cure album....in the simple truths of its clammy love songs and sweeping guitars of 'Maybe Someday' and, in particular, 'Watching Me Fall'..."
Uncut (3/00, p.78) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...This gently undulating homage to catatonia is something of a gem - crisply layered, quietly hypnotic, with a comfortingly Cure-ish middle eight of crazy-paving Les Dawson piano. Hooray!
CMJ (2/7/00, p.3) - "...The Cure has become formidable once more...returning to form, basking in an introspective lyrical intensity that's mirrored by a brooding, gritty, guitar-driven dankness....[it] approaches the top of the group's heap of classic records..."
Mojo (Publisher) (3/00, p.98) - "...one of our finest lyricists turns in a virtuoso performance....This is classic Cure. Three listens and you'll love it."
NME (Magazine) (2/14/00, p.43) - 7 out of 10 - "...reopens [their career], replays it, and finds it worthy of reinvigoration....[It] is the dark, dense core of Smith's psyche, and a reminder that The Cure are at their fearsome best when creating soundscapes awash with uncertainty and dread..."