The Blossom Filled Streets

{{Infobox album

| name = The Blossom Filled Streets

| type = studio

| artist = Movietone

| cover = Movietone – The Blossom Filled Streets.jpg

|border=yes

| released = {{Start date|2000|07|10}}

| genre = Indie rock

| length = 40:30

| label =

| studio = Bristol, England

| recorded = 1999

| prev_title = Day and Night

| prev_year = 1997

| next_title = The Sand and the Stars

| next_year = 2003

}}

The Blossom Filled Streets is the third studio album by English post-rock band Movietone. It was released on 10 July 2000 by Domino Recording Company and Drag City.

Background

Several tracks on the album were considered personal to vocalist Kate Wright, and they were inspired by the deaths of individuals significant to her. Consisting of nine songs, the album was recorded in Bristol in 1999 and has a runtime of over forty minutes. "Star Ruby" and "Seagulls/Bass" were recorded at the lengths of around two minutes, while the other songs were between four and seven minutes. It succeeds the band's second album, Day and Night, released three years prior.

Reception

{{Music ratings

| rev1 = AllMusic

| rev1score = {{Rating|4|5}}

| rev2 = NME

| rev2score = {{Rating|3.5|5}}

| rev3 = Pitchfork

| rev3score = 8.6/10

}}

Pitchfork assigned The Blossom Filled Streets a rating of 8.6 out of ten, referring to it as "a lost indie rock gem from 2000, an ethereal and luminescent highlight of the underground Bristol scene."{{Cite web |last=Richardson |first=Mark |title=Movietone: The Blossom Filled Streets |url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/movietone-the-blossom-filled-streets/ |date=9 February 2025 |access-date=28 March 2025 |website=Pitchfork |language=en-US}}

Eamon Sweeney of Hot Press complimented the band's use of piano and woodwind. He opined that the song "Seagulls/Bass" is proof of the band's airiness, and praised Wright's vocals on the opening track, "Hydra".{{Cite web |last=Sweeney |first=Eamon |date=22 March 2001 |title=The Blossom Filled Streets |url=https://www.hotpress.com/music/the-blossom-filled-streets-425005 |access-date=28 March 2025 |website=Hot Press}}

NME, scored the album three and a half stars out of five, remarking, "Everything feels tremendously loose, as pianos and woodwinds circle indolently around drumming that could, in a gentler world, be called jazzy."{{Cite web |last= |date=12 September 2005 |title=The Blossom Filled Streets |url=https://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews-nme-2598-330124 |access-date=28 March 2025 |website=NME |language=en-GB}}

AllMusic rated it four stars and stated, "It may be overly simplistic to say that a band called Movietone makes music that sounds like the soundtrack to melancholy film scenes under gaslight and stars, but they do make that music, and its filmic richness makes this album a most unique treat."{{Cite web |last=Proefrock |first=Stacia |title=The Blossom Filled Streets – Movietone |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-blossom-filled-streets-mw0000085098#review |access-date=28 March 2025 |website=AllMusic}}

Composition

"Hydra" opens with oscillating drone created by the viola and clarinet, and Matt Jones' drumming on the song was noted as "loose and wild". Rock music critic Mark Richardson of Pitchfork and the The Wall Street Journal observed that several songs from the album resemble "disconnected pairs", comparing "1930s Beach House" with the opening track, "Star Ruby" with the title track, and "Porthcurno" with the closing track, and noting the other three songs, "Year Ending", "Seagulls/Bass", and "In a Marine Light" as instrumentals that convey the ambience of a deteriorating house in Bristol, where several of the band members lived.