The full length debut doesn’t disappoint
There are those groups with names that tell you what sort of genre they are from. Anything with two X’s where X’s don’t belong is most probably going to sing about swigging bottles of Jack. Anything with the word “spawn” in is probably going to be summoning Satan from the depths.
Then are those that use their moniker to describe what they are.
London based three piece, Bright Curse are most definitely one of the latter. Ostensibly the seven songs which make up either their first full length record, or their third EP depending on how you look at such things, are shimmering, doomy, psychedelic and grove filled.
But it’s a lot more fun to peel away the layers and lay bare the dark heart beating beneath.
Opener Lady Freedom swaggers in like it owns the place, orders the usual and sits down to make itself comfortable. New bass player Swede Max Ternebring to the fore with a terrific groove, but its soon adopting a swirling motif and singing about a girl you can’t call when you’re alone. Brilliantly, though, if you just want to enjoy it as a rock n roll song, then Bright Curse don’t care and have helpfully added a quite magnificent guitar solo before the end to allow you to do just that, as Romain Daut soars away.
With that, really, the die is cast. “The Shore” – with its key line “you’ll be sure to find what you’re not looking for, on the shore” merely hints at being unsettling, but launches into a mighty crescendo as it does.
“Cheating Pain” has a bluesy, primal side, but again, these boys just can’t resist taking the rules and bending them. This time with a spoken word piece about embracing death, while the gorgeous, lilting acoustic start that it has doesn’t really belong in a song called “Walking In A Graveyard (Bloody Witch)” – which would actually be the perfect summer music were it not for the lyrics.
“Candles And Flowers” with its metronomic beat from sticksman Zacharie Mizzi is the most overtly stoner rock thing on offer and you’d guess would be magnificent live. “Northern Sky” is merely proof positive that there’s never been a bad song with a Hammond Organ in.
This most compelling of collections reaches its wonderful conclusion with the quite superb “Earth’s Last Song” which is epic without being grandiose and inaccessible, instead very calmly and skilfully gives almost a reprise of the record as a whole.
“Before The Shore” is a record that almost gives as much of itself to you as you want it to. To put it in terms of a seaside holiday in the rain, you can observe its waves from the comfort of a clifftop bench you want, or much better run to the sea and just immerse yourself in it.
Not just a bright curse, but a brilliant one.
Rating 9/10
