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Curve
Come Clean
(Estupendo/Universal)


It's been too many years since we last saw a release from Curve. Toni Halliday always had a way to make you melt, even through the noise Dean Garcia and company built. There was always that deep bass melody and distorted guitar to add to her lyrics of lust and love. It made all us jaded folks actually think about love for once.

Well, the wait was definitely worth it. Even though it's been roughly five years, Come Clean is a logical follow up to Cuckoo. Sure there's been minor changes and improvements, but the general principle is the same. This time around, Curve have more of an edge, and this record is louder than anything they've done before, and they were no quiet ensemble. The guitars are noisier than before, while still not masking the melodies. "Something Familiar" is just that, a tale about the fine line of lust and love that sounds as if is could have been a Cuckoo outtake. "Sweetback" starts with a techno influenced intro and Halliday's effected whisper, then it breaks into a full volume white noisefest spurned on by a techno beat with the refrain "Then I'll be happy in love." Halliday's voice pleads for mercy during "Forgotten Sanity," telling how a lost love has wrecked her, she's forgotten how to do just about anything. Halliday's voice is as strong and seductively mature as ever, while her lyrics keep the same love/hate relationship with love. Garcia's instrumental work and programming show he's been dabbling in the studio during the hiatus extending the Curve sound.

A few songs do take the premise that Curve relies on and expands them to new grounds. The opening cut "Chinese Burn" shows how the techno influence has influenced Garcia's programming. It's a perfect mesh of Curve's traditional sound with the techno influence, it's odd to hear at first, but once familiar with it, it makes perfect sense. "Come Clean" is really like a punk/techno tune. Based on a driving drumbeat, overly effected vocals butt up against the simple melody line creating a hyper-punk version of Curve. Once again, it may be different, but it's not a stretch for them to pull this off.

In an age where everyone wants to overhaul their sound to fit the recent trends, it's bands like Curve, who just tweak their ideas instead of tear down and rebuild them, that will have the staying power to go the distance and carry us jaded souls clean into the next millennium.

-tom topkoff

Track Listing:

1. Chinese Burn
2. Coming up Roses
3. Something Familiar
4. Dog Bone
5. Alligators Getting Up
6. Dirty High
7. Killer Baby
8. Sweetback
9. Forgotten Sanity
10. Cotton Candy
11. Beyond Reach
12. Come Clean
13. Recovery


Outtasite



The Break And Repair Method
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The Beast
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Heiskell
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Trojan EVOLVE
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