Having lulled us into a moment of relative calm and blissful beauty with the divine “Further Still”, Curxes have brought back the blitz and are attacking our senses from all angles.
Trailed with a series of short videos of the duo in massive Budgie heads (no, really), “Avant Guarded” has been wowing and bombarding live audiences for a while but now it gets a release of its own and none of that live energy or rawness has been lost, and it’s even more infectious.
It’s fast paced and frenetic, like a jump to hyperspace straight into the chaos of a full on space battle with lasers flying here there and everywhere. Evasive action is taken as alarms blare out, control panels flash and beep like their life depends on it, and our ship whirls, dives and barrels out of the frying pan and into the fire and off again. It’s not so much a trap as intergalactic civil war and as good as John Williams is, we can’t help but imagine this would make a fantastic soundtrack to the new Star Wars films.
As well as the frenticism and glorious cacophony of pop that is coming at us from all sides, there are some decidedly delicious moments that we can’t help but love. A little tonal change here or there to channel the band’s inner Oakey for some very Human League-esque vocals in the background, Roberta’s lead vocals still sounding like she could take down a city’s walls should she wish to; the blistering pace of the beat and electronic rhythm that doesn’t let up for a second. The whole thing is just fantastic and we can’t wait to see how it translates to a video (the concept for which you can probably guess if you watched the track preview vids).
It’s industrial and edgy but there’s still more than enough pop brilliance in there to get your groove on to and that will get stuck in your head. We’ve been whistling the tune for the last few days now, much to the delight (?) of all around us. That, perhaps, is an underrated element of Curxes music, the outright catchiness of it all, we’re yet to hear a song of theirs that didn’t get stuck in our heads and pop back up again randomly a few days later, probably in a meeting where our sudden humming of “Haunted Gold” isn’t as appreciated as much as we would have expected.
We can’t wait to see the look on people’s faces when “Avant Guarded” makes its inevitable appearance at the next all staff gathering.
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