Fact #128976
When:
Short story:
The Cure release a new album, Bloodflowers, on Fiction Records in the UK.
Full article:
Robert Smith (The Cure) : This is one of three classic Cure albums. I accept now that The Cure have a sound, and this album is the sound of The Cure. The difference is, now I like the idea, I like the fact that you know it's The Cure within 30 seconds of it starting. It's a testament to what we've achieved. (Uncut, 2000)
Robert Smith : When we were making Bloodflowers I certainly intended it to be the last studio album, but I think the enjoyment I've derived from the shows we've played so far this year has changed my mind a bit in that regard. I've never enjoyed the band as much as I have this year in all the years I've been doing it. I've never had as much contentment I suppose, on stage as well as off. We're playing really well and the shows and audiences have been fantastic. I thought it would be pretty dumb to say 'let's stop now'. I'll probably be tempted to record something after this tour of Australia just to see what happens and I won't mind if it doesn't work. I don't have any long-term plans. If Bloodflowers ends up the last studio album The Cure makes then I will be happy with that. I will be content. It was supposed to be. (Drum Media, 2000)
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THREE REVIEWS OF BLOODFLOWERS FROM HI FI NEWS
Inevitability, that's the watchword. No one is to blame for what happens in life. "The world is neither fair nor unfair," advises Robert Smith at one point. Things that are beautiful are followed by those that are not. Or so he claims. On 'There Is No If...' Smith reflects on first time love but immediately connects with thoughts of death. 'The Loudest Sound' proclaims that, years on, relationships often add up to nothing, his long-term lovers residing "side by side in silence". At 40, the Cure mainman doesn't find much to smile about. Even so, though Bloodflowers adds up to nine tracks of misery, lyrically, in terms of melody it has its fair share of memorable moments, the opening 'Out Of This World', among others, proving a multi-layered beauty. Even the overstretched 'Watching Me Fall' ultimately impresses, and only the the percussive shambles that is '39', really disappoints. Not at all a bad goodbye from The Cure, if that's what Bloodflowers ultimately proves to be.
Fred Dellar A
It goes without saying that The Cure will never be hired to do, say, a soundtrack for a remake of Pollyanna. Born and bred in that gloomiest of eras - post-punk - the band continues to depress the hell out of all who listen, e.g. lingering 'Goths'. Now into middle age, Robert Smith can hardly identify with the sort of bewildered teen angst which inspired him (and his following) in the past, so now the misery is of a more mature nature. Filled with bleak love songs, modernised with doses of melody and texture not out of place on a current 'ambient' release, but oozing imagery in keeping with the make-up I hope he's by now forsaken, this album is so, so, so Eighties. It almost makes you wanna go out and throttle Morrissey for making such drivel chic in the first place. Dispiriting by any measure, utterly lacking the soul which makes the blues succeed in the same emotional arena.
Ken Kessler
There's two kinds of Cure albums. Intensely depressing ones and intensely depressing ones dressed up as pop songs. I get on best with the latter, like Head On The Door where jaunty tunes and sparkly guitars provide a bittersweet contrast to Robert Smith's bleak world view. This isn't one of those. Robert's currently at the bottom of a pit from which, it seems to him, there's no escape. The saving grace is that he does misery better than anybody else in the known universe. Unlike Leonard Cohen, Smith's melodies employ more than one note; unlike the cursed Morrissey, Smith doesn't blame his troubles on everybody else; unlike Mark E. Smith of The Fall, Cap'n Bob isn't consumed by bile. Musically, his texturing of guitars and ambient sounds is often gorgeous, and anybody who can't find shards of their own broken hearts in 'There Is No If...' or 'The Loudest Sound' is pretending never to have had a broken heart. And, if you don't acknowledge a broken heart, you can never mend it.
Johnny Black
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Robert Smith : When we were making Bloodflowers I certainly intended it to be the last studio album, but I think the enjoyment I've derived from the shows we've played so far this year has changed my mind a bit in that regard. I've never enjoyed the band as much as I have this year in all the years I've been doing it. I've never had as much contentment I suppose, on stage as well as off. We're playing really well and the shows and audiences have been fantastic. I thought it would be pretty dumb to say 'let's stop now'. I'll probably be tempted to record something after this tour of Australia just to see what happens and I won't mind if it doesn't work. I don't have any long-term plans. If Bloodflowers ends up the last studio album The Cure makes then I will be happy with that. I will be content. It was supposed to be. (Drum Media, 2000)
--------------------------------------------------------
THREE REVIEWS OF BLOODFLOWERS FROM HI FI NEWS
Inevitability, that's the watchword. No one is to blame for what happens in life. "The world is neither fair nor unfair," advises Robert Smith at one point. Things that are beautiful are followed by those that are not. Or so he claims. On 'There Is No If...' Smith reflects on first time love but immediately connects with thoughts of death. 'The Loudest Sound' proclaims that, years on, relationships often add up to nothing, his long-term lovers residing "side by side in silence". At 40, the Cure mainman doesn't find much to smile about. Even so, though Bloodflowers adds up to nine tracks of misery, lyrically, in terms of melody it has its fair share of memorable moments, the opening 'Out Of This World', among others, proving a multi-layered beauty. Even the overstretched 'Watching Me Fall' ultimately impresses, and only the the percussive shambles that is '39', really disappoints. Not at all a bad goodbye from The Cure, if that's what Bloodflowers ultimately proves to be.
Fred Dellar A
It goes without saying that The Cure will never be hired to do, say, a soundtrack for a remake of Pollyanna. Born and bred in that gloomiest of eras - post-punk - the band continues to depress the hell out of all who listen, e.g. lingering 'Goths'. Now into middle age, Robert Smith can hardly identify with the sort of bewildered teen angst which inspired him (and his following) in the past, so now the misery is of a more mature nature. Filled with bleak love songs, modernised with doses of melody and texture not out of place on a current 'ambient' release, but oozing imagery in keeping with the make-up I hope he's by now forsaken, this album is so, so, so Eighties. It almost makes you wanna go out and throttle Morrissey for making such drivel chic in the first place. Dispiriting by any measure, utterly lacking the soul which makes the blues succeed in the same emotional arena.
Ken Kessler
There's two kinds of Cure albums. Intensely depressing ones and intensely depressing ones dressed up as pop songs. I get on best with the latter, like Head On The Door where jaunty tunes and sparkly guitars provide a bittersweet contrast to Robert Smith's bleak world view. This isn't one of those. Robert's currently at the bottom of a pit from which, it seems to him, there's no escape. The saving grace is that he does misery better than anybody else in the known universe. Unlike Leonard Cohen, Smith's melodies employ more than one note; unlike the cursed Morrissey, Smith doesn't blame his troubles on everybody else; unlike Mark E. Smith of The Fall, Cap'n Bob isn't consumed by bile. Musically, his texturing of guitars and ambient sounds is often gorgeous, and anybody who can't find shards of their own broken hearts in 'There Is No If...' or 'The Loudest Sound' is pretending never to have had a broken heart. And, if you don't acknowledge a broken heart, you can never mend it.
Johnny Black