Fixx-ing What's 99% Broke: The Fixx, Inspired by OWS, Return With New CD "Beautiful Friction."

     The Fixx have always been the thinking man's (and woman's) new wave band. Of course, we like to think so because we like them and we like to think of ourselves as smart. (Duh!) Even beyond our obvious bias, however, the "thinking man" label has stuck for one simple reason: It's true.

     And, not only have The Fixx consistently made us stroke our chins and go "HMMMM" many times over the years, but they're also a fierce live act and one of the most innovative and undervalued forces to emerge from the new wave scene of the 1980s. Now, the band that gave us such classics as "One Thing Leads to Another," "Saved by Zero," "Red Skies," "Are We Ourselves?" and "Secret Separation" are back with a vengeance on a brand new studio album called "Beautiful Friction."


     The album, inspired in part by the energy of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, draws upon the tensions and anxieties that define our modern age and, hopefully, presage a better tomorrow. There's no bandwagon jumping here; anyone who knows the Fixx's history will recall that these themes have cropped up in their music repeatedly over the years. (Even back in 1986 they were singing, "The rush of youth, what it could achieve.") The social and political events of the last few years have merely re-energized the band and sharpened the focus of their creative laser beams.

     The results of this revitalization are there for all to hear on "Beautiful Friction." Jaw-droppingly gorgeous songs like "Just Before Dawn" and the title track nestle up comfortably to ferocious rockers like "What God?" and "Take a Risk," with lead singer Cy Curnin employing his singular vocal style with a startling new-found maturity throughout. Just listen as he nimbly leaps from haunting to yearning to erupting with existential anguish and back again every few bars or so. (Hell, the way he sings "The unaccountable wait to die" on the album's first single "Anyone Else" is worth the price of admission alone.)

     It's also worth noting that "Beautiful Friction" features ALL the members of the best-known Fixx lineup, right down to the funkiest guy to barely ever move on stage (and the man behind some of the most memorable grooves of the 80s), bass player Dan K. Brown. Jamie West-Oram - one of rock's most insanely underrated guitarists - is on board to provide his patented, jagged riffing and those clean, chiming guitar tones that ring out like the harmony of the spheres, while Adam Woods is on hand to swiftly and safely bring those chords back to earth with his pounding drums. Rounding it all out is Rupert Greenall, who loves to soak everything in a scary, sinister vibe - that is, when he's not using rushing keyboard lines or bell sounds to create moments of sheer, other-worldly beauty.

     And if any of this sounds like it borders on the portentous, fear not: The Fixx are way too crafty with a hook and way too savvy with their pop-smarts to let the album ever get bogged down with the weight of its own ideas. These guys are no strangers to the Billboard Top 40, after all! "Beautiful Friction" is a timely latter-day release from an important band who still care about making lasting music in a world that gets ever more disposable by the second.

     These are crazy times we live in; it's good to know The Fixx are "still around" to help us through it all - and keep us thinking.

    - Glenn Page

Buy "Beautiful Friction" by The Fixx at Amazon.com!

                                                                                                                                                                         

Life Goes Past...

Review: Cy Curnin, Solar Minimum (cycurnin.com)

"New wave" bands sometimes get a bad rap, but anyone who put his or her wine cooler down for 5 minutes back in the 80's knows there was a lot more to The Fixx than skinny dudes running from barking Dobermans in a white tunnel while singing "One Thing Leads to Another." No, these guys had some heavy-duty stuff on their collective brows, from nuclear annihilation to self-alienation to the struggle to find inner peace - and they did it all while dodging models in red dresses falling through the skylight.


More than 25 years later, the Fixx are still at it, and while they may not be as prolific as they once were or enjoy the same level of chart success they once did, they have defied the naysayers and remained true to their artistic vision of funky rock songs as the ongoing soundtrack to man's search for enlightenment and serenity in a seriously f'ed up cosmos.


Meanwhile, Cy Curnin, lead singer and chief lyricist for the band, has vented some of his excess creative steam by releasing a series of superb solo albums over the last few years. His latest, "Solar Minimum," could be his most intimate and personal to date. Whereas early Fixx songs always grabbed the listener by the scruff and tried to whip him into shape, the songs on "Solar Minimum" seduce the brain with gentle piano chords, lilting strings, and conversational melodies that unfold at their own pace.


While such an approach results in an album less immediately accessible than, say, "Reach the Beach," the overall experience may be more gratifying as a whole. Tracks like "Other Side of the Story," "Sail," and "Better Luck Next Time" find Curnin in uber-reflective mode, a modern-day troubadour on an endless mystical search for the meaning of "Life" (with a capital "L").


Curnin has always been an emotive singer, but on "Solar Minimum" he ups the ante by serving up some of his most haunting vocals to date. On the aforementioned "Story" he starts things off by exploring his affecting lower register (and when I say low, I mean he's like subterranean, baby), before harmonizing with his own "Fixx-like" persona by song's end. Likewise, on the moody, minor-keyed "Simply Complicated," he's so overcome with emotion that words begin to fail him and he lapses into a mournful "LO, LO, LO, LO" chorus. You can almost picture the French Café and guys in berets nearby.


Other highlights include "It Finds You," with its decidedly funky, Fixx-ish vibe, "My Sweet Life," on which words of regret ultimately give way to reggae-tinged gospel, and "The Weight," a confessional piece of prose set to Curnin's tender piano figures.


Listening to me describe "Solar Minimum" you might think you're in for a whole bunch of hokey emotional bombast. Quite the contrary, Curnin's production is so restrained and the delivery so sincere that the overall effect is never anything short of pretty damn moving. And while this isn't a Fixx album proper, Fixx-o-philes will be pleased to know that a couple of Cy's bandmates pop in for a visit, with a certain surname-hyphenated guitarist lending a little electric muscle to tunes like "In the Palm of Our Hands."


In short, if you're looking for a CD with 12 carbon-copies of "One Thing," then pass this by and simply pick up a Rhino "Just Can't Get Enough" 80's comp instead. However, if you're looking for a richly rewarding and thoughtful work by an artist trying to lend aural comfort to his fellow "travelers," then you might want to check out Cy Curnin's latest. It's called "Solar Minimum," but Curnin definitely gave "the max" on this one.


*** ½ (three-and-a-half out of five stars)


Notable Tracks: "The Other Side of the Story," "My Sweet Life," "Simply Complicated," "Better Luck Next Time," "Sail"