Music review of their new cd Bloodflowers
“Bloodflowers is certainly our happiest, most homogenous work ever,” says The Cure mastermind Robert Smith of the Gothic quintet’s seventeenth album. An accurate assessment of the new CD, though it would seem happiness is relative. In fact, Bloodflowers is as dark and stormy as the band’s Crawley, England homeland. Morbidity has been the spice of The Cure’s recordings since its founding in 1976. A few years ago, a British journalist even went so far as to count the 137 times Smith refers to his own death in his songs. “I’ve often asked myself why my lyrics deal with the darker side of life,” admits Smith. “The main reason is I am extremely neurotic. I’m afraid of everything — planes, illness, most people and, naturally, death. But the more I deal with these issues in my music, the less afraid of them I become. Using my incurable fantasies to create my texts is the best therapy for me. I’ve been a rebel since my chilhood,” Smith continues. “So it is natural for me to address issues of which society never speaks, such as death, fear and nightmares. Those who are armed against the idea of death are few. But I am!” And fans of the band’s music benefit from Smith’s self-help method. The 40-year-old lead singer with the wild hair and painted face finds his angst relief through The Cure.