Curve

Considering Curve's towering monolith of guitar noise, dance tracks, dark goth, and airy melodies, it's strange that their two core members -- guitarist Dean Garcia and vocalist Toni Halliday -- met through David Stewart of Eurythmics. Halliday met Stewart while she was a teenager and they remained friends for years; Garcia played on several Eurythmics records. The two played together in State of Play, who released one album and two singles in the late '80s to little notice. After the failure of that band, Garcia and Halliday parted ways, only to reunite at the beginning of the '90s. Renaming themselves Curve, Halliday and Garcia released three EPs that became independent hits in 1991. Although they were critically acclaimed as well, some members of the U.K. press attacked Halliday for not being a genuine member of the indie scene. Despite the negative press, their next EP and first album, 1992's Doppelganger, hit number one on the U.K. indie charts.

By the time of the following year's Cuckoo, Curve had added two guitarists and a drummer, with Garcia moving to bass. Cuckoo was noisier and more experimental than their previous releases, although it did have a couple of pop songs that were tighter than their usual singles. However, the album didn't make as big of a splash in the U.K. as previous releases; Curve split several months after its release, only to re-form in 1996 with the Pink Girl with the Blues EP. The full-length Come Clean followed a year later and "Coming Up Roses became a moderate hit on college radio. Three years later, Curve issued the Internet-only Open Day at the Hate Fest. This album collected MP3s and B-sides and was a limited-edition package for eager fans awaiting a proper studio album. After battling contractual obligations with Estupendo/Universal, Curve returned to form for 2001's Gift, their fourth album in ten years. Another self-released disc came in 2002, and a two-disc compilation entitled The Way of Curve followed in 2004. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi