The Cure - "Bloodflowers"
or
Baron Administrator Paige's First Ever Music Review

Yes, I like The Cure. No, I am not some blood-drinking, sprite-worshipping goth who gets his kicks wearing dog collars and calling himself "The Prince of Sorrows" and praying every night that I wake up allergic to sunlight. I resent the stereotype that the Cure only plays to the morbidly depressed gutter sweepings of society who insist on spelling the word "fairy" as "faerie". In fact the Cure is a very mellow group, boasting as many songs about the joys of love and self-discovery as they do about the pain of loss and the agony of not knowing one's self. They are very talented musicians with a particular ear for synthesized and multi-layered sounds and a penchant for less percussion and more six-string bass. And while many of their songs and in fact whole albums are themed on pain and suffering, it is always for a purpose, such as to explore the immense complexity of existence. Unfortunately, few folks in or out of the mainstream can appreciate this when radios will play absolutely nothing but "Killing an Arab" and "Friday I'm In Love", two songs The Cure completed in the course of fifteen minutes so they could pay their rent one month.

That said, The Cure's latest effort, "Bloodflowers" is as complex and penetrating as any of their best earlier work, like "Pornography" and "Disintegration". It's a slim volume, comprised of only nine songs, but what it loses in quantity it more than makes up for in length (the shortest track is five minutes and Track 2, the best on the album, clocks in at a whopping eleven minutes, thirteen seconds). Like most of their albums, it starts strong and finishes strong with a little bit of everything in between. "Out Of This World" is a sentimental tune about the passage of time while the title track "Bloodflowers" is a sad but very powerful little number about giving up on everything. We are also treated to "Maybe Someday", the song The Cure must have performed a dozen times while promoting the album because it was comparably sort and easy to perform, and "39", a angry soliloquy that many fans believe may be lead singer Robert Smith's admission that he is at last tiring of being the strained voice of two generations of disgruntled life-livers. With lyrics like "The fire is almost out and there's nothing left to burn," and "Half my life I've been here, half my life in flames, using all I ever had to keep the fire ablazeŠI've finished everything and there's nothing left to burn" I'm beginning to think that may be exactly what he's saying. Say it ain't so, Robert.

"Bloodflowers" is an immense improvement over The Cure's last album "Wild Mood Swings", a forgettable effort that seemed utterly devoid of the repressed rage and pain that seems to fuel so much of their best stuff. "Bloodflowers" is, by comparison, very heavy stuff, and Smith sounds truly unhappy again through his vaguely apparent English accent. This album unquestionably revisits the excellent lead guitar and slow, steady, building and layering of sounds that has become such a staple of The Cure's best work, and the considerable length of each track allows them to take such layering to new levels (I think there is a four minute instrumental before Smith says a word in "Watching Me Fall").

I listened to this album four times the night I got it, and have often used it while writing a long paper or surfing the Net since then. It is a terrific album, pure and simple, equal parts energizing, enraging, inspiring, emotional, and thought provoking. If you're a Cure fan it is an essential. If not, this album may very well make you a believer. Highly recommended.

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John Paige
3.21.2000

Dairy Farmers For Quebec's Independence