With everyone and their cryogenically defrosted bass player reforming now, it’s a crowded market for what the industry politely terms “heritage acts”. But since reforming in 2008, Curved Air have been welcomed back, with a handful of new songs to throw into their sets.
Now going out with a line-up including the ever-iconic Sonja Kristina, drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa and newly rejoined guitarist Kirby Gregory, they’ve come up with several more tidy compositions for this follow-up.
They know what their prog-loving public want, and the fluttering flutey folk and punchy riffing of opener Stay Human provides it, as does the staccato urgency of Time Games and Spider’s spirited jazz-rock instrumental. Puppets is the pick of a clutch of re-recorded old songs, while among the three covers, Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars gets a surprisingly effective double-bass-and-voice treatment.
