| From a freak outpost in the improbably named Sunshine, a suburb west of Melbourne, Australia, Curse Ov Dialect cram a soundstage worth of scenes into the brightly cinematic "Word Up Forever." A quick orchestral prelude drops into a lighter-than-air choral hook, and the camera pans down to our heroes. "Sitting in a struggle nobody understands," one of the dudes raps. "I think it's just a dream, it's all so utopian," another sighs, and a Beatlesy horn entwines around a scratch break. cLOUDDEAD's Australian cousins, Curse Ov are equally enamored with abstract statements of social consciousness ("I'll be happy when I can talk and talk without talking") and perfectly lucid bits of dada ("Synapse reactors, I bifurcate," someone notes with righteous casualness). Holding it together are pure musical smarts: a shimmering garage-pop interlude (sounding like it was re-recorded on pre-stretched cassette) in one corner, and—when the choir and horns finally wrap around one another—a brief, spectacular Busby Berkeley finale at center stage. - Paper Thin Walls |
