Curve

Toni Halliday (Words) & Dean Garcia (Music)

If you have never heard Curve then I’m about to shine a ray of hope on your tragic existence. Alright, maybe I’m being a bit melodramatic but Curve is still a great band… and I have a crush on Toni Halliday. Don’t judge me! I’m afflicted with a incurable disease that can only be subsided by obtaining more of Curve’s music! Oh sure, Toni Halliday produced material before Curve, but when she teams up with Dean Garcia then you get magic. Pure magic, I says!

Yeah, this is going to be a weird post. But why not? I’ve gotta mix things up every once in a while. So where was I? Oh yeah… pure magic! And that starts us off with Come Clean, the first Curve album I purchased and one of the best albums I’ve ever bought. I must have listened to the thing a million times and I still haven’t gotten tired of it. It’s no wonder that Klayton is a big time Curve fan, or so I’ve heard from one of Klayton’s fans. There seems to be some sort of “Six Degrees of Fandom” forming here. Makes me wonder who Toni and Dean admire. Hmmm…

Dodging any further tangents, let’s get into specific songs from the album. If I had to kill that nagging voice in my head, which some would call a conscience, and pick some favorite songs off of Come Clean, I would start off with “Chinese Burn,” the first track. I remember playing the album for a friend of mine and as soon as “Chinese Burn” finished he declared, “I need to get this album just for that track!” Then there’s “Dog Bone,” a bitterly angry track that doesn’t require the screaming and shouting that a lot of rage rockers need to get the point across. Instead it cleverly arranges distorted guitar work to create this harsh, aggressive mood flowing throughout the entire song. Following that track is “Alligators Getting Up,” which is a smoothe little number with a bass line that gives is a James Bond-ish sort of feel. I feel cooler just listening it. I’m listening to it right now, so let me check my awesome meter… yep, I’m awesome. We’ll skip ahead to “Cotton Candy” which is a crazy cool track that has layers of shuffling guitar noise that make me wanna get up and do a raving robot dance.

Anyway, putting aside all wackiness I’ll just finish off describing Come Clean by saying that it is an incredibly crafted piece of what could be called synth rock. This album should be a part of every music fan’s collection.

Buy Curve’s album Come Clean

Curve – Chinese Burn
Curve – Alligators Getting Up

And thus we move to Doppelgänger, which is Curve’s debut album. It sounds a lot different than Come Clean. In fact, the songs on Doppelgänger sound very similar to the music that My Bloody Valentine released. That’s not to say that Curve’s debut is a copycat album. One could say that it took a step or two beyond the shoegaze sound and started heading towards an entirely new and original style. Whereas bands like My Bloody Valentine relied on creating this impenetrable wall of noise, Curve uses a similar “wall of noise” principle on Doppelgänger but the large collage of sounds have a more noticeable structure to it. Just listen to the two sample tracks I have provided and you’ll catch my drift, that is if you’re familiar with shoegaze. I just hope that you like Curve and support their music.

Buy Curve’s debut album Doppelgänger

Curve – Horror Head
Curve – Sandpit

Oh yeah, and as an added bonus please enjoy this unreleased song that was temporarily available on Curve’s official website.

Curve – Some Good Some Bad