Dour Cursiva
Voices Through Wires
Hold True
Dour times
The underground being what it is, all too often you find that a new band armed with a debut album turns out to have been around for a while. Formed three years ago in Providence, RI, metalcore crew Dour Cursiva actually turn out to claim a further five years prior experience in other bands. Three plus five equals eight, which just so happens to be the number of tracks on their debut. It’s at this point when a reviewer ought to be able to expect truly astonishing tracks in exchange for all that hard work, but that’s not quite the case here.
For the better part of the first half of Voices Through Wires, Dour Cursiva deliver their self-proclaimed “mixed bag of melodies, dissonances, polyrhythms and drones” with a frustrating lack of cohesion. Take the first pair of tracks: “Pro Patria Mori” starts well, but derails its own momentum, getting in some good licks before the end, while the following “Carrier” starts flawed, but gets a good riff going eventually. The ensuing numbers start to hint at the band’s potential, but it’s not until “Paint Kills People” and especially the paydirt track “Canals Are Not Rivers” that this is really fully realized, achieving a consistency in the chopped-up riffing that could actually be considered good songwriting.
Lyrically, too, the band works in stream-of-consciousness fragments that don’t really gel until the same track. More of a mishmash than math rock, the album shows plenty enough potential. If Dour Cursiva could resist the urge to follow the well-trod path to Dillinger Converge nerdcore heaven, it could well be that the next eight songs due from them might be something to shout about a bit more loudly. —Nick Terry
