Sometimes timing and luck are everything.
On their first three EPs, Curve emerged from the mass of contemporary UK shoegaze bands with something new—they introduced aggressive electro beats to a swirling, fuzzy shoegaze style.
The songs featured screeching echoes of post-punk guitar, shimmering washes of sound, dark, hazy clouds of reverb—all on a foundation of throbbing and pulsing rhythms that injected an energy to the music never seen before in shoegaze. And vocalist Toni Halliday’s gutsy singing could strut along effortlessly with the beats.
Sadly, Curve’s subsequent work would never completely live up to the promise of their first three EPs. In their other releases, I feel, they seem to be chasing their influences—My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins and a host of electronic acts—rather than leading them.
Yet Curve is the band that essentially invented the sound that would propel Garbage to a much larger audience later in the decade. (I will grant that Garbage, at least on Garbage 2.0, did it better. Maybe.) By the time Curve regrouped for their third album, Get Clean (1998), Curve unfortunately sounded like Garbage imitators rather than the other way around. It seems Curve had arrived a couple years too far ahead of their time.
What? No playlist?
I had a CD-length playlist of Curve planned for your listening pleasure. Unfortunately, only 3 of the 18 tracks I selected appear to be available on Spotify. So I won’t bother making a playlist available.
Here are my selections:
From the Blindfold EP (1991):
- Ten Little Girls
- Blindfold
- No Escape from Heaven
From the Frozen EP (1991):
- Coast Is Clear
- The Colour Hurts
- Frozen
- Zoo
From the Cherry EP](1991):
- Die Like a Dog
- Galaxy
From Doppelgänger (1992):
- Fait Accompli
- Wish You Dead
- Clipped (a longer version of which appears on the Cherry EP)
From Cuckoo (1993):
- Unreadable Communication
- Crystal
- Superblaster
From Come Clean (1998):
- Chinese Burn
- Alligators Getting Up
- Cotton Candy
I even have an expanded version of the playlist that adds 4 additional tracks from Cuckoo, probably their best LP, and 2 more from Come Clean. (I’d say their most acclaimed and popular release, Doppelgänger, is their weakest.)
Cover Art:
- Cuckoo (front cover and inner gatefold): Source, Discogs.com, Fair use.
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