****
(Fiction/Warner)
Review: Russell Baillie
His cameo on South Park a little while back probably did the stock of the Cure's Robert Smith more good than his band's dismal last album, Wild Mood Swings. Now, perhaps because he recently turned 40 and has been mumbling that this might be the Cure's last stand, it sounds as if Smith has refocussed on what he and his band do best on record.
For Bloodflowers, which echoes earlier misery-guts albums Pornography and Disintegration, certainly reminds of the deep dark intensity the Cure can achieve when they are in grand gloom mode.
It broods at length (especially across the 11 minutes of Watching Me Fall), the deliberately-paced tracks big on swirling atmospheres of familiar guitar touches, occasional electronic textures (the hard-hitting Coming Up) and Smith's rampant melancholy.
That all hits home neatly on penultimate track 39 (that age thing again) where Smith muses, "The fire is almost out and there's nothing left to burn," shortly before his guitar commits Hendrixesque arson to what's left of the song. Bloodflowers might be the embers of a career, but it still scorches.
The Cure - <i>Bloodflowers</i>
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.