[Roll Your Own Life] The Music That Shaped Me (part 9)

Curve - Doppelgänger (1992)

Dumped. Yeah, just after Valentine's Day as well. I remember it well.

Anyway, wasn't happy. My first real girlfriend had broken up with me, but my friends at art college rallied around me and tried to keep me distracted so I wasn't wallowing in self pity. One of my college friends had recommended this band called Curve earlier, and I'd heard a lot of their EPs (Ten Little Girls, The Coast is Clear, etc.). In an act of complete synchronicity, just after the breakup at the end of Feb saw the release of Curve's first proper album - Doppelgänger.

Curve were described as shoegazing filth-pop, and remain number 2 in my all time favourite bands (sorry, but Nine Inch Nails are going to be hard to top). Curve were a mass of electronically constructed beats and synths, with grinding noisy guitars, and the amazing vocals of Toni Halliday echoing over the top. They were the goth music that had defined me so long before, only angrier and noisier. They were dark, doom-laiden, and hated the world (one of their later albums is called Open Day At The Hate-Fest).

I still love Curve. There was a long period when I thought that it was just three albums (Doppelgänger, Cuckoo, and Come Clean). Then came that Spider-man movie trailer using Hell Above The Water, and I discovered they were back - new albums, and even a load of unreleased stuff you could get from their website. I was so happy.

Unfortunately, it didn't last, and 2005 they called it a day. The talk of a reunion is always looming on the horizon and I live in hope.