Reviews
[3rd Nail] [All Music
Guide] [Carbon 14] [Carpe
Noctem] [City On A Hill Press] [Dewdrops]
[Gajoob] [Good
Times] [Improvijazzation Nation]
[Industrial Nation] [Interface]
[Magnet] [Neo Gothic]
[Nox] [Outburn] [Panopticon]
[Permission] [Sonic
Boom] [Voltage]
- Nox
- Bethany Curve's specialty is lots of layered sound. The vocals
of Richard Millang and Ray Lake softly soar, while Chris Preston
on bass, and David Mac Wha on drums, keep a steady beat. My
first thought upon hearing the eight-minute long Vanish, is
that it reminds me of The Cure in one of their moodier moments.
In fact, many of the songs here have that sound -- particularly
the guitars. However, the vocals are quite different. I don't
like to compare performers to others, but keep in mind that
I do this from time to time in my reviews to help my readers
get the best possible idea of what the music is like.
Spacirelei is a track that's also featured on the Nocturne
Concrete Compilation that I have also reviewed here. Terpsichore
starts out as a lovely melancholy song, and evolves into noise.
Lots of innovation here. The intriguingly titled Door 2416
is a lush tune with sweet vocals, while Grend Shanka becomes
more sinister in tone. Almost Perception brings things to a
close as one of the best songs on the CD. (Note: Bethany Curve
have had one other release since Skies A Crossed Sky.)
- All Music Guide
- The motto of the band, boldly stated in the clear CD tray,
reads "atmosphere - arrangement - sound - layering - noise," and
that's about the size of it. The first track, "Vanish," will
have any shoegazing cultists out there practically weeping
for joy. Crossing the heavily phased intensity of the Cure
with more recent kings of beautiful noise such as Slowdive,
it clearly indicates where the rest of the album is headed.
Skies a Crossed Sky is dedicated to the proposition that digital
delay pedals and dreamy, druggy tempos and lyrics will always
have a place somewhere. Released on a small label in the mid-'90s,
it resolutely refused to fit in anywhere on either mainstream
or alternative radio, making its joys all that much more fun
to seek out. The vocals sometimes take a dark turn, but more
on the level of quietly ominous dread than hyped-up screaming.
More often than not, though, the band sticks to long, sighing
deliveries which should be familiar to fans of Ride. Musically,
the mix of styles on the record is impressive. The soft chiming
and solo guitar webs of "Terpsichore" give way at
song's end to crumbling feedback and heavily processed snarls,
while the deep, lovely ringing which makes up nearly all of "Mot
Juste" is simply to die for in its melancholy appeal. — Ned
Raggett
- Improvijazzation Nation
- Issue #26
- Bethany Curve: SKIES A CROSSED SKY - What a change of pace
THIS one is! In from Unit Circle Rekkids (Seattle), this CD
expands on the brief listen I had to "Curve" on UCR's "Nocturne
Concrete", only a month or so ago. This Santa Cruz based
group (according to the liners) "strive towards making
mood music above the norm". No KIDDING! Though quite atmospherically
inclined, there's still enough rhythm down under to keep your
listening focussed! Sort of like the "Moody Blues",
post-2000. Clean/clear recording will only add to your aural
pleasure. One of the more interesting aspects is the use of
guitar-based melodic patterning as a synth emulation. Now,
maybe THEY didn't intend that interpretation, but it surely
FELT like it. This music reaches for the outermost points of
our galaxy and beyond), and ACHIEVES it! Fortunately for YOU,
it's available for you to cruise along with. WATCH this group...
they're GOING somewhere! SOON! Comes MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
by th'Zzaj! Contact at POB 20352, Seattle, WA 98102, or via
e-mail to rekkids@unitcircle.org - Rotcod Zzaj
- Panopticon
- Bethany Curve - "Skies a Crossed Sky"
reviewed by The_gun
On the cover of Bethany Curve's "Skies a Crossed Sky" is
a color painting of clouds broken by the thin threads of sunlight.
It is an epic picture of moody forces battling with a force
much larger and powerful than they are. Such is the music of
this band. Wispy vocals, heavily laden with sorrow and unattainable
desire try to cut their way through cloudy layers of guitar
to the listener's ear. All that makes it through, however,
is the occasional thread of a sentence here and there. Owing
much to the shoegazer goth bands of 80's, the four members
of the band create a soundtrack to a movie whose sets are dark
candlelit rooms with curtains shivering in front of broken
windows. The album is definitely designed to be listened to
from beginning to end, each song decaying into the next, on
a dreary, rainy day or just after your significant other has
dumped you. If you've already listened to The Cure's
"Disintegration" and you still want more mood music,
this is your next choice.
- Sonic
Boom 4.10
- Bethany Curve is an intriguing band to be released by the
primary noise oriented Unit Circle Rekkids, in that it contains
an inordinate amount of harmony and depth. An extraordinary
amount of passion and emotion is expressed with little more
than a guitar and sequencer, almost enough to confuse Bethany
Curve with a gothic act. The vocal are equally as intense and
only serve to accentuate the already lush soundscapes created
by vibrant guitar chords and imaginative programming. A few
of the track border on ambience, albeit lacking any sophisticated
loops or beat driven percussion to truly deserve that label.
In any event, the most impressive item about this band is the
non-conventional guitar work. I have no idea what series of
pedals or delays the guitarist is using, but it has allowed
the stringed instrument to sound more like a keyboard than
anything else. Any band that can take a normally blasphemous
instrument in relation to industrial music and rework it into
something inherently opposite is deserving of my gratitude
and respect.
- Gajoob Magazine
- The cover of this album lists the words : atmosphere, arrangement,
sound, layering, and noise. That 's a much better explanation
than I could give to describe the sound this band can produce.
I find their music utterly beautiful. Bethany Curve creates
flowing soundscapes that'll make you feel as if you're floating
above the clouds. They use what I assume to be some sort of
synthesizer to create a sound similar to guitar sustain or
a stringed instrument. Great music to space out to late at
night.
- Good Times (Santa
Cruz, CA 11/14/96)
- Putting a '90s twist on an '80s theme, Bethany Curve's new
album takes the mood-pop of bands like the Cocteau Twins and
turns the dark up a couple of notches. The real beauty in Skies
A Crossed Sky is how it balances a lush ambient sound with
the driving undercurrent that runs through most of the album.
Not every song grabs the ear, but a great beat and some spooky
guitar work keeps everything edgy as Bethany Curve winds from
rhythmic melody to shadowy noise, with the rich vocals wafting
through the music like another instrument. Experimentation
aside, Bethany Curve succeeded when they take on more traditional
song structues, as proven by "Almost Perception." The
end of the album offers a fresh take on the otherwise tired "secret
song"
device. - S.P.
- 3rd Nail #15
- I love it when music just seems to pour out of the speakers
like this. There is a steady beat, and snuggled up right next
to it the bass repeats the same phrase over and over, then
this long whining guitar note fades in like it was coming from
far away and when it gets here it stays slow and high pitched
compared to the beat plodding along behind it, the vocals enter
like the guitar. You can't make out the words because it is
just a moaning sort of keening, but that doesn't matter because
it is just another instrument. I love this kind of stuff! Some
of the tracks are more noisy and rockin' in a good way, but
all had that sound-wall type effect.
The Cure used to pull this style off before Robert's
vocals (and presumably ego) crowded out the music in the
later albums. This is similar but even more dreamy and there
is even an occasional old-western-movie type echo guitar
part thrown in here and there (a-la-Fields Of The Nephilim).
This makes me want to go lay on my bed an look at the glow-in-the-dark
stars on my ceiling. (Oh No! I'm 15 again! Help!) Wonderful
music that will make you happy and sad all at once. (JL)
- Outburn #2
- Hailing from Santa Cruz, CA, but on a Seattle record label,
Bethany Curve unleashes dreamy guitars, pulsing drums, and
thick, but melodic bass lines. Although their press sheet compares
them to Lush (hmmmm.....?) and The Fields of the
Nephilim (Not!), I think they more clearly resemble the
wash and vocals of Ride along with the other worldliness
of Sky Cries Mary. Some of the songs have dark enough
elements and traditional sounds to make the Goth kids happy,
but I don't think that was Bethany Curve's intention. The guitars
and bass make ample use of the flange, reverb, and delay pedals
while the whispy vocals blend into the music. The recording
is a little crude at certain points and could have been polished
off more, but the album is very likable. I am confused as to
why there are 16 hidden tracks at the end of the album consisting
of experimental sound bites, but Skies A Crossed Sky is
a good listen for those rainy days of winter. - Rodent
- Magnet #27
- The members of this Santa Cruz, Calif. quartet keep the shoegazing
spirit alive and appropriately moody on their second full-length
release. With a hazy, atmospheric sound that falls somewhere
alongside Bowery Electric, Slowdive/Mojave 3 and Flying S aucer
Attack, the 13 tracks here seem to float effortlessly together,
help by wisps of looping bass lines, dissonant guitars and
other studio gimmickry. Ray Lake and Richard Millang take turns
on the vocals, although with the mounds of distortion, it's
d ifficult to tell who's who. But signing is apparently not
a big concern for Bethany Curve. Words definitely take a backseat
to the murky yet melodic structure. Although droning at times,
the band succeeds in creating a musical dreamscape. Choice
track s include "Door 2416" (which is as upbeat as
it gets, with a Nowhere-era Ride tone), "Vanish"
and "Serene And Smiling." And while you're listening,
gave at Skies A Crossed Sky's cover art, featuring- what else?
- puffy clouds and shards of fading sunligh t. After a while,
these clouds will start to move. - John Elasser
- City On A Hill Press (UCSC Student
Newspaper) - February 6, 1997
"I am not going to like this band," I thought as
my friend handed me the Bethany Curve CD to borrow and review.
My friend, like many in Santa Cruz, loves the Grateful Dead
and Phish. I do not. But if I had written him off as a good-for-nothing
dead head when I met him, I would have never gotten to know
a really great person. And if I had prejudged Bethany Curve
as another one of those bands that fits into this tired hippie
genre, I would have been just as wrong.
Bethany Curve is more similar to the Cure. Their first
full-length album, Skies A Crossed Sky, is representative
of the atmospheric, space-rock sound the group's four musicians
create. It would be an appropriate selection for napping,
reading, or shroom ing. This is not rock-out-in-the-car music.
Bethany Curve's debut recording was on a compilation called
Nocturne Concrète. It came out last spring on Unit Circle
Rekkids. Guitarist/vocalist Christopher Preston described
it to City on a Hill Press as "ambient, experimental,
and Gothic." Ambient i s exactly what Skies A Crossed
Sky is.
For most bands, vocals are the most central part of the
sound, but Bethany Curve takes an entirely different approach
as shown on this album. On the first track, "Vanish," psychedelic
sounds emanating from the guitars of Raymond Lake and Richard
Millang overlap vocals that are reminiscent of Gregorian
chants. Other tracks, like "Spacirelei," have this
same sound with the more prominent addition of David Macwha's
drums, which race to keep up with the speeding guitar rhythms.
"Rest in Motion" and "Door 2416" have
the more poppy Cure sound that Bethany Curve sometimes features
on Skies a Crossed Sky. Still however, vocals are not so
central that Preston's basslines cannot be easily followed
throughout each song. Preston, Lake and Millang all take
part in the singing on this album.
Skies A Crossed Sky sounds synthesized, but Bethany Curve
has taken a more creative approach. "We use a lot of
processors and effects but no keyboards. A lot of wacky shit
- TV's, monitors, whatever sounds good on a guitar,"
Preston said.
There are not many breaks in the sound, not even between
the songs. The album is 71 minutes of non-stop weirdness.
According to Preston, they are the same way live. They write
new interludes for in between songs for each show. This creates
a trance-li ke mood. The listener is never shocked back into
the awareness that they are part of an audience at a show.
Bethany Curve often plays at parties in Santa Cruz, but
would like to do more shows. "We need to have a real
place in town to play," says Preston.
"Someone needs to open up a real venue."
Overall, Skies A Crossed Sky is exemplary of Bethany Curve's
success in this atmospheric genre of music. Unfortunately
for them, the audience they would appeal to is not large
in Santa Cruz. Maybe they would be more successful in Santa
Cruz if they did play hippie music. Personally, I am glad
they do not.
- Sierra Junemann
- Carbon
14 - Issue #10
- Bethany Curve might be the west coast equivalent of Spacemen
3 or Spectrum, with less grandiose bits of 1970
Pink Floyd thrown in for good measure. Though they probably
aren't as personally steeped in psychedelics as their music,
the members of Bethany Curve seem to have spent a lot of
time listening to the finer points of "space rock." This
record won't make you dance, but parts of it might just float
you across the room.
- Larry
- Permission #9
- Bethany Curve is an intriguing band to be released by the
primary noise oriented Unit Circle Rekkids, in that it contains
an inordinate amount of harmony and depth. An extraordinary
amount of passion and emotion is expressed with little more
than a guitar and sequencer, almost enough to confuse Bethany
Curve with a gothic act. The vocal are equally as intense and
only serve to accentuate the already lush soundscapes created
by vibrant guitar chords and imaginative programming. A few
of the tracks border on ambience, albeit lacking any sophisticated
loops or beat driven percussion to truly deserve that label.
In any event, the most impressive item about this band is the
non-conventional guitar work. I have no idea what series of
pedals or delays the guitarist is using, but it has allowed
the stringed instrument to sound more like a keyboard than
anything else. Any band that can take a normally blasphemous
instrument in relation to industrial music and rework it into
something inherently opposite is deserving of my gratitude
and respect. - Jester
(ed note: no really, Permission just reprinted the review
from Sonic Boom, I don't know why, especially because I had
pointed out to Jester that BC doesn't use sequencers at all.)
- Voltage - Issue #2
- Much Llike the compositions of Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins,
Bethany Curve's deconstructionist musical style features layers
of beautiful disjointed sound. Although this band from Santa
Cruz uses no synth keyboards, the heavily-textured guitar effects
of Raymond Lake and Richard Millang blur all typical musical
reference points leaving you wondering what instruments conjure
that otherworldly sound. The 71 minute, debut CD bleeds from
one track to the next with no discernible boundary between
one song and another. Songs like "Rest in Motion" and "Door
2416" favor more Goth-pop melodies, but most of the CD
powers through highly experimental space-rock noise. The faint,
trapped vocal style of Christopher Preston forces the band
to put their extraordinary instrumental talents center stage,
but this does not detract from the CD. If Bethany Curve featured
a highly-talented female vocalist, they might receive too many
comparisons to My Bloody Valentine. Instead they offer a hypnotic
musical soundscape that is altogether unique. - Da5id
- Carpe Noctem -
Vol 4/Issue #1
- Much to my grim delight, I have never really outgrown my
teen angst. The problem (or at least one of the most glaring
existential ones) is that no one makes the music that fed it
Joy Division, The Cure or The Smiths anymore. No one, that
is, except Bethany Curve. The music that has darkened
my life from age 14 to the present (21 now) can be found on Skies
a Crossed Sky. It's all there, from the dull, heavy percussion
to the borderline whiny vocals. Were the vocals not hidden
beneath layers of electronically-filtered, razor-sharp guitars,
the lyrics would likely be about your typical emotional agony-inspiring
situations. But their loss among the oppressive music adds
to the weighty atmosphere built by Bethany Curve. Though this
recording carries on the tradition of the finest of 80's gloom-rock,
it never sounds stale, but maybe that's just because my old
worn-out copy of Faith does. Bethany Curve breathes
new life into this part of my music collection. I think it
will help sustain my teen angst for the next seven years, as
it can for you. - Ben Colborn
- Interface - Version
4.1
- As ethereal as most Projekt or Tess bands, but with a definitely
harder edge, Bethany Curve really pull off dark and spacey
music without sounding trite or retro. Bethany Curve, with
it's male vocalization and washed out, E-Bow induced guitar
work, is very mature and quite listenable. This kind of droning
and slow ethereal rock is perfect for quiet evenings or depressing
rainy days. Skies A Crossed Sky is very minimal and
tends to drag a bit at points, but overall is very moody and
visceral. A treat for fans of Lycia, loveliescrushing and Love
Spirals Downwards. - David Sexton
- Neo Gothic Magazine -
No. 9/10
- Progetto estremamente valido (soprattutto tecnicamente),
decisamente incline a miscelare molteplici stilemi sonori per
lo piu inerenti la scena ethereal-goth; (fluidi) universi ambient-psichedelici;
oscuri richiami al dark-sound piu intimista ed introspettivo,
insidiato pero, da oblique sonorita noise (unica pecca per
quanto mi riguarda). Valida la timbrica canora, senz'altro
lemprata, soffusa, multiforme e carismatica... Interessante.
- Dario lo Snorkio
- Dewdrops - #16
- Bethany Curve has filled every crack and corner of this album
with creeping, seething dark shimmer. Their goal is obviously
to overload the listener with gloomy and shivering, yet strangely
enlivening noise. The formula calls for lots of spiraling,
deepening overtones with an atmospheric buzz that permeates
the air beneath as pervasively as their glittering guitars
fill the air above. Many of the tracks pick up speed slowly
intensely, like a droning locomotive. The music churns in your
periphery, never quite gone even between songs. The inertia
of Bethany Curve's moody guitars tends to linger long after
the silence has come and gone.
And be assured, it goes on and on and on... Half the album
is patent dark/synth-ey/metal-tinged drone. Then there are
songs like "mot juste" and "troly" that
revisit a certain Victorialand blissfulness not often
heard these days. Apart from the drums, which (though infrequent)
are mechanical at best, this is a great trip. 8-pm, (7-bn)
- Industrial
Nation - Issue 16
- Beautifully blended guitars a la The Cure's Disintegration
but with an original touch and voice, Bethany Curve sweeps
you away. Sometimes sad and melodic, other times bordering
on experimental noise, Bethany Curve is unpredictable yet gives
you a warm feeling inside. Very well produced and put together,
the sonds and sounds mesh together great. Superb vocals, well-written
lyrics and experienced guitars. Very recommended. - Lisa
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