The Cure - Bloodflowers [2000]

The final album in The Cure's "trilogy", Bloodflowers, to put it bluntly, wasn't all that well received when it came out for a reason I can't quite fathom as I think this album stands tall with the other two albums in the trilogy.

This album combines some of the cynicism from Pornography, the intense emotion of Disintegration and adds its own elements. The primary differences on this album in terms of sound come down to two things:

#1: The amazing production allows for intense balance between all the instruments allowing all the subtleties of each one to be picked out (as apposed to the "wave of sound" of Disintegration).

#2: The guitar work on this album is extremely dense with the electric guitars and very light on the acoustic guitars (which haven't been used to this extent before on a Cure album).

This album also has the most variety then any other of the trilogy albums, having "happy" songs ('Maybe Some Day', '39'... 'happy' being a relative term of course). Depressing sounds ('Where The Bird Always Sings, 'Last Day Of Summer') and, my personal favorite, an "epic" approach to the music ('Watching Me Fall', 'Bloodflowers').

Highlights of the album are the aforementioned "epic" sounds as The Cure has done long songs before but none have felt so large or had such a powerful end like those two.

This concludes the "trilogy" which for me was where I started loving The Cure as much as I love them today. :)

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The Cure - Disintegration [1989]

I still remember the day I bought and first listened to Disintegration - it was a dank, cold, rainy day - how fitting for such an album! As the 80s neared their end The Cure had become a renowned group putting out successful singles and impressive videos with an almost poppy, dare I say it, cheerful atmosphere. Once again The Cure change with another daring career move.

Disintegration is not a happy album the moody atmospheres of Pornography returning but this time with heavy use of synthesizers creating the a texture of almost orchestral proportions. Also, the twisted element of the atmosphere has been removed in favor of a "lost romance" type of feeling (crying in a room by yourself whilst holding a dying rose sort of thing) which quite frankly is extremely beautiful sounding and this makes the album not always depressing like Pornography but always with at lest a hint of deep sadness.

The highlight of this album for me are the two songs 'Prayers For Rain' and 'The Same Deep Water As You' which represent the full power of this album in two song.

The trilogy concludes with Bloodflowers which will be uploaded soon.

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The Cure - Pornography [1982]

Now this has been a long time coming so sorry for the delay. I will be posting all of the The Cure's "trilogy" albums (Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers) - so named after the live DVD in which all these albums were played in their entirety. For me, this album is The Cure's first true goth rock album, as opposed to the earlier melancholic post-punk sound, the constricting sterile production replaced with powerful percussive drums, resonating bass lines and dense atmospheric guitar work. Another large feature on this album (and most Cure albums to be honest) is Robert Smith's distinctive voice which on this release manages to pierce right through all the layers of music (as well as your skull if it's on loud enough) to convey the somewhat twisted nature of the sound of this album. Highlights of this album are 'One Hundred Years', 'The Hanging Garden' and 'The Figurehead'. This line up of the band didn't last much longer and The Cure broke up after the conclusion of the following tour and by the time The Cure returned this post-punky gothic rock was no longer the focus and a new age of The Cure's sound was ushered in. Oh yeah, I bought this album with its bonus disc which includes demos of many of these songs (they sound kinda like the album would have sounded if it was still very post-punky) and some live material from this album which has varying degrees of quality.

Stay tuned for the next two albums in the "trilogy".

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