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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Bloodflowers
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 28 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Elektra/Asylum
Release Date: 15 February 2000
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative
Summary
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.'
Also By This Artist: 4:13 Dream Join The Dots: B-Sides And Rarities, 1978-2001 The Cure
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...
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 >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 >CDNow
Bloodflowers is a marvel. It has something to say, and it delivers that message with passion.
Read Full Review >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 >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 >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 >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 >HOB.com
Even as they approach epic length, the songs remain beautiful, dramatic, and above all else simple.
Read Full Review >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...
Read Full Review >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 >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 >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 >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
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.
