NERVOUS CURTAINS

Dallas trio Nervous Curtains has been making music consisting of keyboards, drums, and vocals since 2008. On its fourth album, I Tried to Fight It But I Was Inside It, the band has left behind the retro leanings of previous releases and has produced a menacing sound that mirrors the fear, chaos, and defiance of the present moment. The drums alternately stab and swagger in head-nodding syncopation, the sawtooth waves cut forcefully through the mix, the hooks are leaner, meaner, and everything is dialed to a shadowy psychedelia which offers no escapism.

Opener “Mass Amnesia” proves that you need no guitars to make thrash music about the forever wars; Moog bass riffs and creeping Carpenter-esque synths will do just fine. “Paramilitary Re-enactor” embodies the lurk of fascism that right-wing authoritarianism and militarized, post-truth society brings about with pulsing electronics and syncopated drums that build to climactic release. Album centerpiece “Fatal Flaw” starts with a solitary hypnotic synth bass, adding harsh but danceable rhythmic textures and synth and mellotron layers as vocalist Sean Kirkpatrick breathlessly rants on our cruel system that promises elusive success and freedom while telling you that your failure is your own fault. With a spiraling synth lead and pounding punk beat, closer “People Are Not Reasonable” speaks to the discordant informational chaos of our times. After crashing into a half-time doom breakdown, the final verse and melodic lead hint at an uplift peeking through the dread. Humans may be driven by irrational beliefs and easily swayed by propaganda, but there is a better world than this techno-surveillance monetized death machine we’ve swirled into. Whether the shrouded optimism, here, is genuine is up to the listener to decide and the future to reveal.