For some reason, the Cure have never gotten the critical
\nrecognition that they deserve as one of the most unique bands of
\nthe rock era. No one has ever really matched either the signature
\ndark, brooding, layered sound of their most meandering album
\ntracks, or the peppy sound of some of their “hits.”<\/p>\n
Maybe it’s because they occasionally overdo it. Maybe it’s the
\nmakeup. But love them or hate them, there’s no denying that the
\nCure have always been an entity like no other. When they were
\nchurning out new albums every year, their approach was somewhat
\nahead of their time, but oddly enough, in the ’90s, the decade that
\nshould have finally embraced them wholeheartedly, they have been
\nvery spotty in terms of new material.<\/p>\n
\nBloodflowers<\/i> may end up being their last album, but that
\nwould be too bad if it were, for it’s the most cohesive Cure disc
\nsince 1989’s
\nDisintegration<\/i>, their previous cusp-of-a-new-decade release.
\nThe two are actually being compared in nearly every piece written
\nabout the new album, and it’s not surprising, since they both take
\nthe Cure’s unique approach to album-writing.<\/p>\n
Upon first listen, the melodies don’t really stand out, and many
\nof the songs sound the same. But after several listens, not only do
\nthe subtle differences between individual tracks get more
\npronounced, but the fact that many of them do have striking
\nsimilarities gets less and less annoying. The reason is that on
\nboth
\nBloodflowers<\/i> and
\nDisintegration<\/i>, the Cure set out to write a full length
\nalbum, as if it were an hour long musical piece, one that evolves
\nslowly and methodically, through lots of turns, but nevertheless as
\nan album rather than a collection of 10 random songs. It’s what
\nthey do best, and after the aptly-titled
\nWild Mood Swings<\/i>, it’s great to see it again.<\/p>\n
But this isn’t
\nDisintegration Part 2: Electric Boogaloo<\/i>. The Cure actually
\ndo something they’ve never really done before on this album – they
\nlet acoustic guitars shine through, and it’s absolutely
\nbreathtaking. “Out Of This World” has the typical dense
\nwhisper-to-a-flourish build up of any Cure album-opener, but when
\nthe axe makes its first appearance, it sounds like they’ve been
\nlistening to Ani DiFranco. “Where The Birds Always Sing,” the
\nclosest thing there is to “upbeat” on the disc, lets some
\nwell-placed piano trills and folkish ninth chords sneak in among
\nthe synth strings and wailing electric guitar – oh, and the words
\nare good too, it’s sort of a Cure self-criticsm; “The world is
\nneither fair nor unfair\u2026 you always want so much more than
\nthis.”<\/p>\n
Even on the tracks where they’re 100% plugged, they’ve never
\nsounded this organic. Maybe it’s because they’re making a little
\nmore sense – “There Is No If\u2026” is about yet another
\nrelationship in jeopardy, but it’s a lot easier to tell exactly how
\nit’s in jeopardy. The vaguely electronic “The Loudest Sound”
\nfollows it as sort of a companion piece; a relationship (perhaps
\nthe same one) even further in jeopardy, but has a sense of
\ncomplacency to the previous piece’s struggle. The more acoustic
\n“The Last Day Of Summer” is the kind of poem Morrissey would kill
\nto write – “It used to be so easy, I never even tried\u2026 but
\nthe last day of summer never felt so cold.”<\/p>\n
As for the musical passages leading into the
\nmostly-over-6-minute tracks, they’re still well in excess of a
\nminute, but contain significantly less repetition than in the past.
\n“Watching Me Fall” is over 11 minutes long, but due to some of the
\nwildest and most adventurous meandering guitar soloing ever to
\ngrace a compact disc, it hardly seems like it.<\/p>\n
Not that repetition is necessarily bad – they did it beautifully
\non
\nDisintegration<\/i>, in fact – but it’s good to hear the Cure
\ntrying some different tricks.
\nBloodflowers<\/i> is the Cure in complete sentences. Much of the
\nmagical innocence has been lost, but the Cure are still as
\nthoughtful, and darker than ever. Many of today’s younger bands who
\ndraw their inspiration from the Cure’s gothic past would benefit
\nfrom hearing what Robert Smith and company can still do in the
\npresent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":25341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6048],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36547","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-cure","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36547"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36547"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}