CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games Books TV
Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Music

Upcoming Release Calendar
All-Time High (And Low) Scores
Best Of 2007
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
Best Of 2003
Best Of 2002
Best Of 2001
Best Of 2000
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Music In Our Forums

 

Upcoming & Recent Releases

sort by name sort by score

80 American Music Club
61 Anti-Flag
71 Apes
69 The Apples In Stereo
81 Atlas Sound
68 Atmosphere
71 Autechre
79 Kevin Ayers
62 B-52s
82 Erykah Badu
68 Bauhaus
70 Be Your Own Pet
73 Beach House
72 Bell X1
65 The Big Sleep
74 The Black Crowes
77 The Black Keys
88 Bon Iver
75 Boris
71 Born Ruffians
72 Billy Bragg
74 The Breeders
50 The Brian Jonestown Massacre
80 British Sea Power
73 Cadence Weapon
67 Mariah Carey
87 Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
68 Clinic
78 The Constantines
74 Elvis Costello & The Impostors
63 Counting Crows
74 Crystal Castles
59 Danity Kane
53 Craig David
75 Ray Davies
80 Death Cab For Cutie
61 Gavin DeGraw
69 Del The Funky Homosapien
78 Destroyer
79 DeVotchKa
77 diskJokke
81 The Dodos
59 Does It Offend You, Yeah?
57 Mike Doughty
67 Justin Townes Earle
74 Kathleen Edwards
82 Elbow
66 Elf Power
72 Estelle
70 Evangelista
66 The Feeling
77 Tim Fite
79 Flight Of The Conchords
54 Flo Rida
77 Flogging Molly
75 Foals
82 Frightened Rabbit
80 Fuck Buttons
61 Ghostland Observatory
76 Gnarls Barkley
78 Goldfrapp
66 The Gossip
70 Grand Archives
60 Adam Green
61 Guillemots
80 The Gutter Twins
77 Headlights
86 Hercules And Love Affair
78 Howlin Rain
68 Alan Jackson
61 Janet Jackson
58 Junkie XL
74 The Kills
79 Kaki King
65 The Kooks
54 Kula Shaker
69 Lady Antebellum
66 Ladyhawk
71 Daniel Lanois
77 The Last Shadow Puppets
63 Leona Lewis
71 Jamie Lidell
73 The Long Blondes
79 Los Campesinos!
64 Lyrics Born
71 M83
66 Madonna
76 Stephen Malkmus
75 Man Man
80 Matmos
83 James McMurtry
70 Colin Meloy
72 Tift Merritt
83 Meshuggah
65 Kylie Minogue
63 Moby
67 Allison Moorer
63 Morcheeba
69 Van Morrison
74 The Mountain Goats
75 Murder By Death
75 Mystery Jets
79 Neon Neon
79 The Night Marchers
64 Nine Inch Nails
76 Nine Inch Nails
78 No Age
68 No Kids
80 Jim Noir
70 Panic At The Disco
73 Dolly Parton
74 Pete & The Pirates
75 Phantom Planet
74 Plants and Animals
85 Portishead
56 The Presidents Of The United States Of America
76 Pride Tiger
65 The Proclaimers
78 Prodigy [of Mobb Deep]
79 R.E.M.
76 The Raconteurs
72 The Raveonettes
87 Robyn
69 Pete Rock
74 The Rolling Stones
80 The Roots
59 Rick Ross
77 The Ruby Suns
81 Santogold
76 She & Him
51 Simple Plan
65 Ashlee Simpson
71 Snoop Dogg
81 Sun Kil Moon
67 Supergrass
79 Switches
72 The Sword
70 Tall Firs
61 Tapes 'n Tapes
64 The Teenagers
76 These New Puritans
71 These United States
78 Thrice
69 Tokyo Police Club
78 Jim White
76 Why?
62 Widespread Panic
76 Young Knives

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

 

Bloodflowers
by The Cure

The Cure reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 69 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.5 out of 10
based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 25 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album

Robert Smith declared 'Bloodflowers' to be the final release from The Cure. It wasn't, of course, but it does in theory complete a trilogy that began with 'Pornography' and 'Disintegration.'

LABEL: Elektra/Asylum
RELEASE DATE: 15 February 2000
DISCS: 1 disc
GENRE(S): Rock, Alternative

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

91
Entertainment Weekly
One of the band's most affecting works.
Read Full Review
90
Mojo
This is classic Cure. Three listens and you'll love it.
Read Full Review
90
Sonicnet
This is classic Cure music, straight up (or should that be straight down?): lengthy songs (most more than five minutes) with plenty of cold, alternately chiming and grinding guitars, fluttering keyboards and, of course, Smith's mournful yowl, which hasn't sounded this intense since the The Top's "Shake Dog Shake" in 1984.
Read Full Review
80
Ink Blot Magazine
Their disparaging wails and hums are strangely magnetic?
Read Full Review
80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
The album does seem to pick up where Disintegration left off, offering long, casually cathartic songs driven by minor chords and loopy, languid drones.
Read Full Review
80
CDNow
Bloodflowers is a marvel. It has something to say, and it delivers that message with passion.
Read Full Review
80
Dot Music
Bloodflowers' stands as a glorious, if contradcitory, body of work. It won't win new converts but lapsed Cure fans will find it a thrilling and rewarding hour.
Read Full Review
78
Wall of Sound
Fans who have waited patiently for a proper follow-up to 1989's acclaimed Disintegration should be pleased, if not necessarily bowled over by Bloodflowers, a deeply felt album with a similarly downcast mood.
Read Full Review
70
Spin
Bloodflowers smartly pulls up the weeds and cleans a bed for mid-life flowers akin to Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man or Dylan's Time Out of Mind, though it doesn't reach the creative heights of those albums.
Read Full Review
70
New Musical Express
Gone are the ill-advised brass and bare-faced chart aspirations of 1996's awful 'Wild Mood Swings', as are the flippant pop songs that commercialised The Cure in the mid-1980s. What we are left with 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.
Read Full Review
70
HOB.com
Even as they approach epic length, the songs remain beautiful, dramatic, and above all else simple.
Read Full Review
70
Checkout.com
On strictly musical terms, Bloodflowers is a disappointment. There is no daring journey to find that elusive new sound.
60
Q Magazine
Wisely, Bloodflowers is every crotchet a Cure album. True, there's no blatant hit single - one of those sudden shifts into gloriously barmy pop frenzy - but there's still ample compensation to be had...
Read Full Review
60
All Music Guide
Bloodflowers boasts all of the Cure's signatures: stately tempos, languid melodies, spacious arrangements, cavernous echoes, morose lyrics, keening vocals, long running times. 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.
Read Full Review
50
Rolling Stone
Smith is incapable of writing five bad songs in a row; even hopeless records (1992's Wish) sport some saving grace ("Friday I'm in Love"). But he can write four bad songs in a row, and Cure albums tend to leak filler like an attic spilling insulation. The latest, Bloodflowers, is half dismissible droning, an unforgivable ratio considering it's only nine tracks long.
Read Full Review
45
Nude As The News
Cure fans will enjoy this record, it's well-made and Smith doesn't break character. Everybody else, no sequels to "The Love Cats" will be found herein. Feel free to stay the hell away.
Read Full Review
30
Puncture
Smith focuses on his own artistic/existential questions to the exclusion of all else, including the record's production, which is completely monotonous, and its pace, which falls somewhere between a plod and a trudge. [#46, p.47]
30
Salon.com
Many of the songs begin promisingly, with glowing guitar figures and plaintive synthesizer cascades, but these hints of beauty get lost in a morass of feedback and ill-defined arrangements.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now! The average user rating for this album is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a3:
fuck the Cure! They've lost it! Robert Smith looks like the goth Elvis and like Elvis circa the mid 70s he's not even a shadow of what he used to be. Not that they were all that great to begin with. If it weren't for the Scottish and the shoegazers the 80s would have been disasterious.

Tyler P gave it a10:
Closer to a ten than a nine, Bloodflowers is an excellent album. While it's highs are never as high as those found on Disintegration ("Disintegration", "The Same Deep Water As You", "Plainsong", "Pictures Of You"), it also lacks Disintegration's lows (the out-of-place "Lovesong" and "Lullaby"). A very sold listen with only one real flaw: Watching Me Fall is perhaps a minute or two too long. The title track is one of my favourite Cure songs of all time -- and that, my friends, is saying something.

Alice X gave it a10:
Truly this is one of the most beautiful albums The Cure have ever produced. It combines the simple instruments and arranges them in such a way to create something complex and full. Many will frown upon this album - do not listen to them, listen to the album. It captures a curtian emotion that not everyone can grasp. It does not sound like the typical Cure albums. It is mature, more developed.

Marina Z gave it a10:
F*c*ing awsome. <33 I <3 The Cure.

David B gave it a10:
A wonderfull album by the goth/rock masters!!!

Drew D gave it a10:
Maybe its because I'm turning 40 this year and feel like "nothing is new", I'm not sure...but BF is far superior to Disintegration, true genius.

Benjamin Bunny gave it a 5:
No my friends, this is most definitely NOT a masterpiece on par with "Disintegration," and it is most definitely NOT their worst album either ("Wild Mood Swings" gets my vote for that). It's just The Cure doing Cure-esque songs with dense Cure production. No alarms and no surprises. Listenable from beginning to end as well as forgettable. For dedicated fans or completists only.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this album in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | BOOKS | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise | Partnerships                                Visit other CNET Networks sites:

Copyright ©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use