Gwen might sound like the name of a female folk-popster, but it’s actually a New York art-rock outfit, and a rather smart one at that, and via the wonderfully and mysteriously titled A Cure That Will Save the Both of Us they deliver 12 new succulent sonic slices.
Pinpointing their sound is difficult: their core clearly shows one foot planted firmly in arty-experimental indie rock, while the other dances across all sorts of genres to create a unique series of sounds. Take ‘Five Miles West,’ a song that begins with an understated yet undeniable groove and indie finesse, then ends in a sort of screaming grunge intensity. From there, they slip into ‘Keep Me Alive,’ an addictive, accessible slice of peppy indie, the polar opposite of the raging finale of the previous song.
There is even room for tracks like ‘Interlude,’ seven minutes of experimentation with ambiance, atmosphere, and found sounds that occasionally break out into a tune before heading off in new directions.
Back on track, ‘Athena’ is a fantastic blend of pop accessibility and indie drive that spills into classic rock salvos, understatement, and contagious licks, but again, it never quite goes where you expect it to, this time descending into gorgeous classical piano grace to play out. The album signs off with ‘The Low,’ a melancholic acoustic folk piece; this is a band that throws curveballs right to the end.
A Cure That Will Save the Both of Us is an album brimming with ideas, so much so that their songs are full of sonic tricks that are only played once and then discarded, of unexpected twists and unseen musical turns, songs that are definitely about the journey, not the destination. What I mean by that is the destinations might be familiar – a quirky pop song, a noisy indie track, a fractured folk piece- but it is how they get there and where they stop off along the way that is the real brilliance here.