Curve

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:

• Doppelganger (March 1992)
• Pubic Fruit (November 1992)
• Cuckoo (September 1993)
• Come Clean (March 1998)
• Open Day At The Hate Fest (2001)
• Gift (2001)
• The New Adventures of Curve (2002)
• The Way Of Curve (a compilation album)(2004)

Curve (k?rv), a. [L. curvus bent, curved. See Cirb.]

Bent without angles; crooked; curved; as, a curve line; a curve surface.

© Webster 1913.

Curve, n. [See Curve, a., Cirb.]

1.

A bending without angles; that wcich is bent; a flexure; as, a curve in a railway or canal.

2. Geom.

A line described according to some low, and having no finite portion of it a straight line.

Axis of a curve. See under Axis. -- Curve of quickest descent. See Brachystochrone. -- Curve tracing Math., the process of determining the shape, location, singular points, and other perculiarities of a curve from its equation. -- Plane curve Geom., a curve such that when a plane passes through three points of the curve, it passes through all the other points of the curve. Any other curve is called a curve of double curvature, or a twisted curve.

© Webster 1913.

Curve, v. t. [imp. & p.p. Curved (k?rvd); p. pr. & vb. n. Curving.] [L. curvare., fr. curvus. See Curve, a., Curb.]

To bend; to crook; as, to curve a line; to curve a pipe; to cause to swerve from a straight course; as, to curve a ball in pitching it.

© Webster 1913.

Curve, v. i.

To bend or turn gradually from a given direction; as, the road curves to the right.

© Webster 1913.