Calling Curxes ‘synth pop’ these days is akin to calling X-Factor ‘progressive and essential TV viewing’. In fact recent live shows have found the south-coast duo ditching the keyboards completely, allowing Macaulay to frug with the guitar whilst Roberta prowls the stage dramatically ready to chew the face off anyone who wasn’t paying attention. Further evidence of this rejection of Depeche Mode comparisons comes with new song Avant-Guarded released earlier this month. Whilst it maintains a basis in programmed electronics, it has more associations with post-punk and electropunk than anything else.
Now let’s be clear about this. The song itself is by no means our favourite Curxes tune. There’s a brilliant earworm of a hook in the part that barks “sound and vision is a privilege, trade your faces, alter the images,” but elsewhere the machine gun beats and angry shouts veer too far away from our core love of melody. It seems that with Avant-Guarded Curxes are letting fly as musical outsiders.
However given a visual treatment things click into place more. The only music video to feature a budgie named Eugene, it mixes real life footage with animation and gives some clues as to the bands existence as d-i-y outlanders and underdogs balancing the drudgery (or should that be budgerie?) of real life (work, household chores) against the need to enjoy escapism / their art. “Eugene Budgerigard – He never lived,” states the epitaph on a gravestone at one point in the video. Poor old Eugene. If only had had flown out of his cage; but maybe flying is something that can only be done by those privileged enough to be able to afford it?
You can download Avant-Guarded from here.
Curxes - Avant-Guarded (Video)
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