Don't expect stripped-down, stripped-back versions of their unholy terror. Curve's Radio Sessions, culled from two sets of recordings for John Peel in March 1991 and February 1992, are as thunderous and downright scary as the song's original vinyl versions. Still, Toni Halliday's siren malevolence lords it up, still the hellish squall of rock's leatheriest goths hammers away underneath. Only the vaguest glimmer of busked, recorded-in-a-day precariousness adds a further frission to Curve's witchy glamour.

Real interest, for anyone other than completist sadoes, is provided by an early incarnation of 'Coast Is Clear'. Written the day before this recording, it still manages to sound mightily, queasily imposing. Elsewhere, Radio Sessions - reheating 'Ten Little Girls' and 'Die Like A Dog' among others - simply reaffirms what a revelation Curve were, and will continue to be..

8 (out of 10)

review by Craig McLean (nicked from 'Vox', dated 1993)