The New Adventures of Curve

AMG Review of The New Adventures of Curve

Andy Kellman
All Music Guide

Shock of all shocks, The New Adventures of Curve aren't so much different than the old ones. Since Curve's fan base hasn't exactly gone through a drastic shift between 1991 and 2002, it's generally happy with the duo sticking to the same sound, which has shown very subtle variations from release to release. Since the duo's first single, several groups have attempted to mimic that sound or use that formula -- dark dance beats, blurs of grinding guitars, a vulnerable but deadly vocal command -- to no good effect. (Pick an action film or eensploitation soundtrack from the last several years at random, and odds are you'll find at least one short-lived, stale-sounding Curve clone.) Or, in Garbage's case, that template has been shrewdly polished and taken to the mainstream to very good effect. Throughout all of this, Curve has retained a very specific sound, and their enduring relevance has also had a good deal to do with the production, which has given their records an up-to-date or ahead-of-the-times feel. Curve has the small market they occupy cornered. So here's another web-only exclusive from the group that neither stands up to their best work nor dilutes it. Roughly half of these songs would make a suitable backdrop for a scene in a Gregg Araki film, in which the bodies of two malnourished androgynymphs feverishly tangle. These roaring numbers, as always, are tempered with slower, quieter material. The biggest (possibly only) surprise is what's stuck at the end of this disc: a strange little rave-up sung by multi-instrumentalist Dean Garcia. Despite the fact that their records no longer sound completely unique, Garcia and Toni Halliday continue to please their loyal fan base while the popularity they deserve eludes them. At this point, they really couldn't care. Why should they?