CURL UP AND DIE

Band: CURL UP AND DIE

Genres: Punk / Hardcore / Grind / Thrash / Post-Hardcore / Metalcore
Related artists: The Weirding Way, Puig Destroyer and Poison The Well.
Country: Las Vegas, Nevada USA
Years Active: 1998-2005
Song: "Damn Girl, That Shit Is Deep Like The Ocean" &
         "God Is In Heaven, All Is Right With The World"
Album: "We May Be Through With The Past..." &
            "...But The Past Ain't Through With Us"
Year: 2003
Label(s): Status Recordings / Revelation Records
This post's artist is from the March 2014 Mix. These are tracks #1 & 16.
You can download the March 2014 Mix#2 right here.
For fans of: Creeper, Furnace, Rats Into Robots, The Abandoned Hearts Club, Deadguy,
                 Bleeding Kansas, Converge, Knut, Botch, The Bled, Minor Times, Engineer,
                 Poison The Well, Lavotchkin, The Ocean, The Expectorated Sequence,
                 Trainwreck, Kowloon Walled City, The Minor Times, His Hero Is Gone, (early)
                 Hopesfall, Ed Gein, Zann, Llynch, The Hope Conspiracy, Achilles, Canyons,
                 Every Time I Die, Old Man Gloom, Heavy Heavy Low Low, Daughters, and
                 Fucking Invincible.

Jeez, I had a hella time trying to find a song for the mix. This band had way too many ear-shattering tracks to choose just one, especially when 2 of my favourites are so different in style and length. Yep, did you notice there were 2 songs by the same band? One of the most epic songs ever written coupled with an amazing shotgun blast of sludgy post-hardcore and grind/trash. These were some eclectic dudes so I'll talk briefly about each album.
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'The Only Good Bug Is A Dead Bug' shows the band during its infancy. What makes this release most notable is the difference in the vocals. They are much more shrill and tend to be all over the place, while the later material - let's be honest, he sticks to the yell/snarl/puke thing. The vocals were the biggest hurdle for me to overcome, as at the time I had just gotten into Converge (which required some time) and this took repeat listens to be able to appreciate the dirty, almost crusty style of Mike Minnick. The use of samples from movies such as Starship Troopers and Event Horizon and sweet song titles make this a pretty good release.

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'1998' has 2 songs that really bridge the gap between the band's first EP and later material. The songs have some subdued moments and the vocals get closer to the style honed on the 2-part EP in 2003. Meh.

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'Unfortunately We're Not Robots' is the weakest outing by the band, in my opinion. The songs sound muddled and poorly constructed when compared to the 3 releases listed below. The tracks vary from ridiculously short songs (many hovering around 1 minute) but even so, it kind of just plods along without many album-defining songs. It's like an infant compared to the teenage years of the next 2 EPs and the adulthood of the final LP. It's a decent album and all, just not great by CURL UP AND DIE standards. Actually, after listening to this again it's almost really good - but doesn't have the hooks or epic feel of the final material.
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'We May Be Through With The Past...' & '...But The Past Ain't Through With Us.'

These 2 releases are probably my overall favourites, although their final LP was a pretty close second. Seriously, this shit fucking owns. Blast through the first 5 tracks on EP1 in only 8 minutes and hear how tight, massive and dirty this post-metal/thrash/mathy-hardcore band had become. Tracks like "I Hate Almost Every Person I Come In Contact With" are not subtle in their Converge worship of the band's pre-'Jane Doe' material. Mike truly hits the snarl with these EPs and the force of his vocals could have ripped your goddamned face off should you have ventured too close to the mic during a live set.

EP2 closes with one of the most epic songs I've ever heard - the absolutely beautiful, crushing and long "God Is In Heaven And All Is Right With The World". This masterpiece takes time to get to what many would consider "typical" CURL UP AND DIE, but the 7-minute intro is probably my favourite thing the band has ever done. Think Envy meets Moby and you've got the right idea. Afterward dipping briefly in a Zozobra/Old Man Gloom-sounding interlude, the band shows that 14-minute songs can be harder and better than any 1-minute thrash or hardcore romp when they start shitting out of the speakers. It's more pleasant than I've made it sound.
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'The One Above All, The End Of All That Is' is epic with more peaks and valleys, slow chill jams and monstrous breakdowns, all without sacrificing their great mini-blasts. These changes are made apparent from the get-go, as "An Uncomfortable Routine" dives headfirst into a huge riff that is pummeling and is relatively consistent throughout the rest of the song but it never really hits the gas pedal. This maturity and simultaneous self-mockery was a recipe for a phenomenal final album. Part of me is glad CURL UP AND DIE called it quits after this (just a small part, though) as they accomplished something that I would consider was well outside of their initial intention at the time of their inception - a truly progressive, heavy album that for the most part seems to have been swept under the rug for the better part of the last 10 years. I did read somewhere that the band was reuniting in 2012 but haven't heard anything since.

Listening to this CURL UP AND DIE while reviewing this reminds me again of why I do this. This band was so incredible and their music has been a part of my life for over a decade that listening to it makes me feel so damn happy to be alive. That's the sign of some pretty sweet musack, John Cusack.

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DISCOGRAPHY

Click )==>here<==( to download the band's complete discography in mp3 form.

2000 - The Only Good Bug Is A Dead Bug cdEP

2001 - 1998 7"EP

2002 - Unfortunately We're Not Robots cd/12"LP

2003 - We May Be Through With The Past... cdEP
2003 - ...But The Past Ain't Through With Us. cdEP

2005 - The One Above All, The End Of All That Is cdLP
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(2005) CURL UP AND DIE - full live set (Montreal)

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CURL UP AND DIE out-of-print discography mp3 download

(download here)

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