There's an episode of "South Park" when the little scamps are battling the evil robotic Barbra Streisand, when they realize that only one thing can destroy the beast: Robert Smith. Only Smith, flawlessly animated as a butterfly battler with the trademark spider-web hair, can best her big-nosed snobbery. And after he saves South Park, the Cure frontman prances into the sunset, while Kyle, after a myriad of thank-yous, yells "'Disintegration' is the best album ever!"
The tyke was on to something. "Disintegration," the band's 1989 70-minute plus opus, is the Cure album, but its cohesive magic has been missing from the Cure repertoire since it was recorded. The Cure has put out great singles, but no great albums since "Disintegration."
First, a clarification: Kyle's declaration is only partly true. "Disintegration" isn't the best album ever, but it is the best Cure album ever, and that's a feat in and of itself. "Disintegration" is sweeping sorrow, earned elation, desperate desire. It is a grandiose exercise in instrumentation and lyrical liability.
On "Bloodflowers," the band's first studio recording since 1996's mediocre "Wild Mood Swings," the Cure delves back into the magical instrumentation that pumped from "Plainsong" to "Untitled."
"Bloodflowers" wants very much to be "Disintegration, Part II." And the Cure tries very hard, but, for the most part, it just isn't happening.
It opens in the broad strokes of "Out of This World" and culminates in the whimpering of the title track. It is a beautiful, twisting, bittersweet journey from beginning to end. It's what a Cure album should be - heartbreakingly engaging and contentedly sigh-inducing - but it isn't luminous. And it could have been.
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Despite such shortcomings, "Bloodflowers" is far from a failure. Smith excels in "Watching Me Fall," a tale of a man becoming disgusted with himself, and "The Loudest Sound," which contains an account that seems to be the harrowing result of the pair in "Lovesong" had it not split. They are stories of regret without reconciliation.
"The Last Day of Summer" opens as elegantly as any of the great Cure commencements, and continues just the same. Its construction is seamless and delicate. It has the yearning for time past of all the good Cure songs.
But stumbling also occurs. A promising track like "There Is No If" falls short when its inimitable lyrics - "Remember the first time I told you I love you / It was raining hard and you never heard / You sneezed" - are not matched by enough instrumentation. It's quiet and bare when it should strong and declarative.
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Grade: B+
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