Song Review - Valkyrie

Valkyrie

by Curxes

Album: Verxes (due soon...please!)

And so I recently spent an afternoon chatting about music and the concept of how things were better 'then' than they are now. I tried to explain that people have been saying that for decades and it's always better 'then' than it is 'now' for some, even though 'then' inevitably keeps changing...but eventually I ran out of breath and energy and made my way home in the dark with a sense of despair because sometimes some attitudes are a little too hard to bother dealing with.


And so then I got home and made some toast and put on some music and realised some of the music I was listening to was released twenty years ago and some twenty minutes ago and I thought about that conversation and I turned on my laptop and logged on to my social media of choice and something popped up that immediately made me smile and anything 'then' and anything 'now' was irrelevant because in my world, then and now are vastly different and yet exactly the same.


And so this is the sound of Curxes latest track 'Valkyrie'; a veritable mash of old and new, with the press of play I am smashed in the face with a barrage of sound; offensive and addictive, the quickfire beats pushing me through, Roberta's vocal as strong and stirring as ever, the interesting mix of pop and groove and anger and adrenaline exactly what I have come to expect from a duo still yet to release their debut album, but a pair I have adored nonetheless for a couple of years now. The concept of 'then' and 'now' is questioned with a pair as talented as these two, because the 'then' is less a sound than a feeling and the 'now' is exactly where I want to be if this is what 'now' means. As with each of their singles so far, they've created yet another sound scape that grabs you by the throat and squeezes enough to hold your breath, until Macaulay's trumpet screams around manically and reminds me to expect the unexpected with Curxes, because when I think I know who they are sounding like, they come along with an instrument or a beat that is mind blowing and so right now it's not even now yet.


And so the conversation of annoyance about 'then' and 'now' was taken away by three minutes of incredible, which ended up being the perfect definition of what I spent an afternoon trying to explain. The music of 'then' is relative, because today's music will be tomorrow's 'then' soon enough, but the best of all music is exactly like 'Valkyrie', which pays respect to its past while barrelling head first into the future and Curxes future can't come quickly enough for me, because I can't wait to hear what they come up with next. With a debut album due not soon enough, I can only look forward to something I won't expect and definitely an album I may possibly refer to as being so much better 'then', one day in the future. Maybe.

Jo Michelmore gives 'Valkyrie' four Siouxsie Sioux heads out of five...