Review Summary: Sexy
Despite being of the same subject, Curve certainly stood out from their contemporaries.
Doppelganger's sister albums, namely the ones resting on the top of any best-of list you can find on the genre, always felt scared, lonely and anxious; their human elements hiding behind defensive production. Curve, on the other hand, felt like they had nothing to hide. In fact, they seemed to crave the spotlight. Everything in their debut album's mix is loud and definitive, particularly the vocals. Singer Toni Halliday is the ringmistress of the duo, commanding almost all the attention. Her succubus voice evokes a sexy and Gothic mood as soon as it makes first appearance. It dances powerfully on the stage of
Doppelganger's electronic rhythms, proudly among the first of 'gaze albums to employ dance beats in its songwriting (a seemingly obvious tactic in retrospect). Of course, you've still got the stapled reverbed guitar in the hands of Dean Garcia. So on the stage are pyrotechnics of fuzzy leads and distorted riffs, effectively blending an alternative rock sound with energy and rhythm you'd expect in the midnight hours of the nightclub. Lead single “Horror Head” penetrated the air in clubs across the UK, bringing noise-pop and shoegaze to virgin ears. Everything offered is so immediately discernible, no smoke tricks, no bullshit. And that's why it works remarkably well. Seeing the album mentioned amongst timid works like Loveless and Nowhere is almost entirely thanks to the timing of its release, but
Doppelganger was a statement towards the tendencies the genre was beginning to recycle. In context, this album came out no more than four months after the release of the movement's identity defining
Loveless. With that in mind, Curve broke down the box music journalists love to trap around newly formed genres, and
Doppelganger was the jack hammer they used to do it.
