CURVED AIR
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Albums reviewed:
1970 - Air Conditionning (8+)
1971 - Second Album (GAP)
1972 - Phantasmagoria (9)

Wow, this remaster is crap. In fact it's not a remaster, someone just played the tapes and put them to CD. No liner notes, nothing. It's sad when considering this album was quite attractive in its LP sleeve form. As for the album itself, I just like the rough guitar sound on it! Songs like Stretch and Propositions benefit from this immensely. It makes the latter particularly menacing, with its jerky main riff. There is a lot of menace also in the skull shattering lyrics of Screw, but this song is notable for having some of the most lifting moments on the album (waves of harmonious violins suddenly jumping at you). But it's odd to talk of "menacing" when referring to a Curved Air album, because those guys are sugarmen. Indeed, the result of humidity acting on your pot of sugar and making it jam together is what eventually produced the band members of Curved Air. They still do rock out on 'Air Conditionning' though, Vivaldi in particular is quite loud in parts; it's actually an exciting piece of music, but the long spaced out middle part is simply, well, too long, and consequently boring. The album ends with an oddly loud remake of Vivaldi, well, with cannons sounds in the background, and it's just useless. In fact the whole Vivaldi thing on the album, and in their subsequent tour, only seems to be useful for the band to rock hard. It's a good enough reason, but it's tiresome; at some point it was my favourite material on this album, now I don't care much for it. Do not forget to catch Blind Man, a mellow "marching acoustic guitar" song that has a life of its own when compared to the rest. You know, my opinion on this album might just not be valid at all in the end; the three most popular songs from this album are It Happened Today, Vivaldi and Hide and Seek, if I remember correctly, and I seem to enjoy the songs in between those more than those "supposed to be" classics. I think Curved Air succeeds with this album at establishing themselves as an oddly glam-prog band, but I wish that they had kept some of the guitar sound they had on this first album. Now that you have no idea what this album sounds like, try to get it for yourself. This must be the most useless review ever. Yay! This 5 months hiatus really hurts.

Simon Lac, June 4th 2005

 

1971
Second Album- GAP
Well yep, it's a gap, with one of their biggest hits; Back Street Luv

Prepare yourself to be surrounded by the most lush sugary feeling. ‘Phantasmagoria’ is all about muffled sound and creamy textures. It all starts with the album cover’s milky colour and puffy atmosphere. Anybody noticed that guy in the back is smoking this kind of, well, I never tried it, I’ve seen people smoke in this stuff, but I can’t remember the name, is it “sheeshah” or something like that? Whatever, if you have a passable interest in Curved Air this is definitely the album you should get. Of course, there are a couple of not-so-interesting synthesized tracks, Ultra-Vivaldi makes me cringe every time and has absolutely no point (it’s a speeding up of the original Vivaldi, but with the addition of general suckiness). When I put the album on I literally live to hear the end of Over and Above. Although the whole of the classic Marie Antoinette is the general consensus when considering the best song of this album, it never reaches the height of that slowing rock and roll moment with a guitar solo that tears your brain apart over Sonja chanting something that sounds like “We love youuuu” over and over again. I’d have to admit that the tale of the French revolution in track 1 is probably more constant though, with its groovy rhythm and dramatic feel. The rest should generally amaze you if you don’t mind a bit of glam, indulgence, and dated synths. Note that Melinda is a beautiful acoustic song from Sonja about a friend who was in drugs; this and Not Quite the Same (about masturbation) should balance the album. It does for me.

Simon Lac, November 20th 2004