Hailing from Montgomery County, Maryland, Dangerous Curves is an interesting beast not least for launching this 11 track album with the slug-line “Dangerous Curves melts faces with their first self-titled EP” – 11 tracks isn’t bad for an EP is it, recordings of such length used to be known as long-players or albums in my day…
The presser goes onto say “This is a band to watch in 2018. Their music has received tens of thousands of hits as it competes for licensing deals with a high success ratio for their short amount of time in the market. Every one of the ten original songs from their EP has already been licensed in multiple worldwide campaigns including two which will be in a movie representing the hard rock genre.”
Well I don’t know abut you but as a reviewer I couldn’t give a flying fuck about “multiple worldwide campaigns” I tend to come for the music and judge it on its merits rather than its number of hits.
Diving right in opener, ‘Go Love Yourself’ is a rather clunky concoction of Metal meets Hard Rock with a breakdown that takes it nowhere in particular and as a song it feels a lot longer than its three minutes thirty seconds. ‘Ripe’ that follows is a little groovier as it plods its well-worn wares out, it’s not exactly awful but its nothing special either as it crawls along stopping just before a solo that could well be from an entirety different song kicks in before exiting sharply and the groove falling back. You start to wonder who thought it was a great idea to talk “multiple worldwide campaigns” rather than hide the rivets in the songs?
‘Damage Man’ starts with a rather pointless intro that sounds just like general studio banter before a Sabbathy riff cuts the air and suffers from some questionable vocals, it’s best glossed over. It’s buttressed by the nice and inoffensive instrumental ‘2 Miles Under’ which bubbles along rather nicely, gets a bit of fire mid-song then reverts back to its gentle noodling. It’s as nice as it is out of place.
‘Bee Sting’ – now here’s something to like, a laid back slightly funky shuffle that slithers ominously and gets a nod of approval before it hits its pointless breakdown just under two minutes and proceeds to sound like a band in the studio trying out a few disparate ideas (I liked the solo but that was it). Man by the time we get to ‘Sashay’ I’m confused – this sounds like a band who has heard a handful of 80’s rockers a bit of Metal and some dodgy breakdowns and decided that their musical world revolves around that combination whether it fits or not. Saying that the rather gentle strummed ‘Sashay’ with it’s ‘countryisms’ is rather deftly done and by far and away the best track here.
If you fancy a breather the one cover here is a rather faithful if uneventful take on Skid Row’s ‘Monkey Business’. That’s followed by title track and band name ‘Dangerous Curves’ a song that is actually quite a nice slab of slow groove-laden hard rock that manages that Metal/Rock meld beautifully.
The album is rounded out by the chugging, brooding ‘Stem Cell’ the rather nice moody strum of ‘Walkout’ and the rather incidental light and easy acoustic instrumental ‘Longbay’ which may or may not be the closing track here and barely makes it past a minute twenty*
*You will probably note that the review above may have a different running order to the actual CD – that’s because the review came from a download with tracks in a completely different running order to the Tracklisting below. Which is correct I’m unsure…
CD Track Listing:
1. Dangerous Curves | 2. Go Love Yourself | 3. Ripe | 4. Monkey Business | 5. Sashay | 6. Bee Sting | 7. Longbay | 8. Walkout | 9. 2 Miles Under | 10. Stem Cell | 11. Damage Man
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