> Switch to Advanced Search

New & Current Releases
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
All-Time High (And Low) Scores
Best Of 2008
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

sort by name

sort by score

64 A Camp
78 Akron/Family
73 Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women
74 Amazing Baby
62 Tori Amos
54 The Answer
74 Anti-Flag
74 Art Brut
71 Au Revoir Simone
65 Zee Avi
70 Bachelorette
77 Bat For Lashes
68 Big Business
76 Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses
67 Black Dice
57 Black Eyed Peas
74 Black Moth Super Rainbow
71 Blank Dogs
65 Booker T.
54 The Boxmasters
65 The Boy Least Likely To
74 Brakes [aka brakesbrakesbrakes]
68 British Sea Power
66 Jeff Buckley
75 Busdriver
59 Busta Rhymes
64 Cage The Elephant
82 Bill Callahan
80 Camera Obscura
68 Cam'ron
79 Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
58 Chester French
82 The Church
61 Ciara
72 Clues
69 The Coathangers
74 Jarvis Cocker
90 Leonard Cohen
70 Elvis Costello
66 Graham Coxon
76 Crippled Black Phoenix
71 The Crocodiles
69 Cryptacize
71 Crystal Antlers
56 The Crystal Method
69 Dananananaykroyd
76 Danger Mouse And Sparklehorse
71 De La Soul
77 Death Cab For Cutie
68 Deer Tick
81 Deerhunter
70 Depeche Mode
78 Dinosaur Jr.
85 Dirty Projectors
86 DJ Quik & Kurupt
77 Doves
68 Dredg
76 Bob Dylan
82 Steve Earle
70 Eels
62 El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez Lopez
58 Eminem
60 Empire Of The Sun
54 The Enemy
67 Jeremy Enigk
68 Nathan Fake
85 The Felice Brothers
79 The Field
65 Fink
60 Fischerspooner
77 Flatlanders
62 Flo Rida
64 Franz Ferdinand
77 Gallows
72 Melody Gardot
59 Ginuwine
71 Golden Silvers
61 Gomez
69 Grand Duchy
73 Great Lake Swimmers
59 Great Northern
72 Green Day
86 Grizzly Bear
75 The Handsome Family
69 Ben Harper And Relentless7
75 PJ Harvey & John Parish
66 Heaven & Hell
85 Levon Helm
74 The Hold Steady
79 Patterson Hood
75 Jon Hopkins
82 The Horrors
69 Hanne Hukkelberg
74 Ida Maria
65 Immaculate Machine
75 The Intelligence
76 Iron & Wine
79 Isis
68 It Hugs Back
88 J Dilla aka Jay Dee
61 Jadakiss
86 Japandroids
61 Joan Of Arc
84 Joe Lovano Us Five
72 John Doe & The Sadies
70 Joker's Daughter
62 Jonas Brothers
53 Mike Jones
71 The Juan Maclean
76 Junior Boys
68 Kasabian
74 Diana Krall
56 Lady Sovereign
43 Ben Lee
68 The Lemonheads
76 Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard
77 Lindstrom & Prins Thomas
65 Little Boots
79 The Low Anthem
67 Jason Lytle
75 The Maccabees
76 Magik Markers
80 Major Lazer
70 Malajube
71 Manchester Orchestra
85 Manic Street Preachers
57 Marilyn Manson
66 The Mars Volta
68 Dave Matthews Band
62 Maximo Park
70 Meat Puppets
80 Method Man & Redman
77 Metric
75 Micachu & The Shapes
69 Chrisette Michele
76 Miike Snow
67 Mika Miko
75 Rhett Miller
49 Mims
72 Mr. Lif
72 Moby
78 Moderat
70 Mandy Moore
80 Mos Def
70 Bob Mould
74 Nadja
72 New York Dolls
72 Nite Jewel
67 NOFX
76 Noisettes
60 Paolo Nutini
67 Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band
74 Papercuts
76 Passion Pit
74 Peaches
71 Pet Shop Boys
68 Peter Bjorn And John
82 Phoenix
76 Pink Mountaintops
63 Placebo
66 Pomegranates
64 Iggy Pop
67 Prefuse 73
81 Ramblin' Jack Elliott
76 Rancid
54 Rascal Flatts
68 Lionel Richie
77 Alasdair Roberts
73 Rick Ross
55 Asher Roth
72 Savath & Savalas
61 Polly Scattergood
65 The Shortwave Set
60 Shout Out Out Out Out
66 Silversun Pickups
85 Todd Snider
78 Sonic Youth
72 The Soundcarriers
61 The Sounds
74 Regina Spektor
63 Spinal Tap
65 Spinnerette
81 St. Vincent
59 Still Flyin'
58 Street Sweeper Social Club
87 Sunn O)))
82 Sunset Rubdown
84 Super Furry Animals
74 Richard Swift
78 Taking Back Sunday
85 Tanya Morgan
81 Otis Taylor
71 Telekinesis
70 Telepathe
80 Thee Oh Sees
79 The Thermals
74 Rob Thomas
64 Thunderheist
74 Tiga
57 Tinted Windows
72 Tortoise
82 Allen Toussaint
71 Trembling Bells
69 Two Fingers
84 UGK
68 Keith Urban
71 John Vanderslice
85 The Vaselines
74 The Veils
73 Viva Voce
63 Patrick Watson
79 White Denim
77 White Rabbits
57 The Whitest Boy Alive
74 Wilco
80 Wildbirds & Peacedrums
78 Wolves In The Throne Room
65 The Wooden Birds
67 Wooden Shjips
81 Yeah Yeah Yeahs
70 Pete Yorn
93 Neil Young
60 Neil Young
72 Yusuf

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Bloodflowers
by The Cure


8.5

based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 28 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

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...

Entertainment Weekly

One of the band's most affecting works.

Mojo

This is classic Cure. Three listens and you'll love it.

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.

Ink Blot Magazine

Their disparaging wails and hums are strangely magnetic?

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.

CDNow

Bloodflowers is a marvel. It has something to say, and it delivers that message with passion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

HOB.com

Even as they approach epic length, the songs remain beautiful, dramatic, and above all else simple.

Checkout.com

On strictly musical terms, Bloodflowers is a disappointment. There is no daring journey to find that elusive new sound.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

The average user rating for this album is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 28 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.

Bloodflowers by The Cure

Bloodflowers
by The Cure