Bloodflowers

This final chapter of the 'Pornography / 'Disintegration' trilogy is truly moving.

Fans who have waited patiently for a proper follow-up to 1989's acclaimed Disintegration should be pleased, if not necessarily bowled over by 'Bloodflowers', a deeply felt album with a similarly downcast mood. In fact, 'Bloodflowers' and 1996's aptly titled 'Wild Mood Swings' serve as a nice sequel to the group's great late-'80s one-two punch of 'Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me' and 'Disintegration'.

Now, more than 20 years after Robert Smith first donned his trademark blood-red lipstick and sang about why boys shouldn't cry, he is dealing with the trials and concerns of getting older. Even the ostensibly happy, pleasurable scene ("You and me, wide-eyed") that's set in the engaging opening track, "Out of This World," leads to the thought that "… we only get to stay so long." And the pretty strains of "The Last Day of Summer" are but a mask trying to hide the fear inside: "All that I feel for or trust in or love/ All that is gone."

At times, Smith and the band pile on the layers of guitars to excess, nearly turning the 11-minute opus "Watching Me Fall" into arena rock, a bit like Simple Minds after their heads swelled too big in the late '80s. But once in a while they rise to a whole new level. "Where the Birds Always Sing," despite its somewhat sappy title, quite possibly contains Smith's best lyric ever. With beautiful, concise language and remarkable insight, he faces the sting of premature death head-on, but without making fun of those who hope for more: "Living on in others, in memories and dreams/ Is not enough and it never is/ You always want so much more than this." Sometimes boys do cry.