A band I
loved to death as a
young one,
forgot about completely for years, and have recently
come back to with a good deal of
passion.
In an editor's review, Amazon.com states, "Curve will never be accused of originality" when speaking of their third album, Cuckoo. This seems a little unfair to me: Curve's sound is distinctly their own and considering how early they were on a scene that lacked the explosive popularity it does today in many ways they're seen as a forerunner of pop-influenced-techno-dancing-stuff. That having been said, I know what the editor is talking about - it's not Curve's distinction from other bands in the same genre that concerns him/her, it's the relative similarity between their albums (at least their first three, after 5 years off things were bound to change some, and they did - some). But for me that lacks the punch to be all that of an effective criticism. The same can be said of many bands that I would compare Curve to - bands whose impact is more based on the mood and ambience they generate than anything else about them.
If you haven't heard Curve before and you want to generate some of an idea of what they sound like, put Portishead, The Cranes and some average brit-pop band like Rialto in a room together. Tell them to play something that sounds absolutely nothing like what they usually play but with the combined spirit, toss in just a touch of Garbage's styling and you might come up with the idea, more or less. Just remember Curve outdates all of em save possibly The Cranes (I don't remember when exactly they formed)...
Album List: