Somehow, despite my constant digging and delving into the annals of pop music history, I am still discovering seminal releases, even in my favorite subgenres and eras. When I first heard “Horror Head” in the shoegaze subreddit a few weeks ago, I thought it was a recent release until I dug deeper and found out that Curve were members of the original late 80s/early 90s British scene that birthed Lush, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive…you know.

But unlike their peers, Curve got much cozier to electronic influences like dancepop and industrial. The massive walls of guitars are paired with drum machines, samples, and Toni Halladay’s lovely melodicism, creating a genre chimera that transcends its era.

I got this record around the same time I was getting into U2’s 90s output, and so my immediate point of reference was Pop—also produced by Flood—, but if U2 was listening to Loveless on repeat. Even the guitar work reflects some influence from Edge’s more ambient work, creating a soundscape that sounds like Pop and The Unforgettable Fire had a baby.

While I stand by that initial reaction, it’s maybe more accurate that it feels like an extension of what My Bloody Valentine was doing on “Soon.” But where Kevin Shields used drum machines and samples to augment the drum tracks, Curve sculpts the entire rhythm track out of them.

Each song is a collection of mangled sounds twisted into swirling, kinetic grooves that have an almost impressionistic sense of composition. Very few of the sounds are clear. Guitars are rendered unrecognizable by effects pedals, while the drum samples are heavily manipulated. Halladay’s voice is processed into an otherworldly croon and poured over the backing track like a syrup.

It’s not easy to listen to, necessarily. The mix is often pushed to the red, filling every bit of space on the tape. The harsher frequencies that most engineers shave off are preserved, giving a hard edge to even the softest tunes. There’s quite a bit of crossover with Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile, which flirted with shoegaze plenty in its own right.

As someone who loves this era of shoegaze though, Curve is a welcome discovery. I’ve often talked about how diverse the original scene was compared to the modern variety, but this expands the spectrum of 90s shoegaze far beyond where I thought it ended.