The Fixx
Beautiful Friction
(Kirtland Recrods)

Strong staccato keys and Adam Woods’ papery snare open Beautiful Friction, the new Fixx album, keeping a nice reign throughout until we get to the big expanse of the keyboard bleeding of the chorus of “Anyone Else.” As he always did, Cy Curnin sounds slinky sexy on the slightly-too-long “Just Before Dawn,” featuring Dan K. Brown’s roiling bass. The title track is upon us quickly and with guitarist Jamie West-Oram and Brown up front, Rupert Greenall’s perfectly placed keys coloring, Curnin in a wholly different voice and Wood’s rim-shots we realize this band is stretching out nicely on their tenth album.

We get a distorted West-Oram and a straight ahead Woods on “Follow That Cab” a rocker well placed among the 11 tracks. “Girl With No Ceiling” has a nice floaty chorus contrary to it’s verses’ bounce. But for me, next to the title track, The Fixx are firing on all cylinders, building around Greenall’s piano and Curnin’s desperation on the centerpiece, “Something Ahead of You.”

I constantly find myself championing the idea of a band not having to “update” a signature sound, and this is the case with The Fixx. As Curnin says of his band’s new album, “The world hasn’t gotten any better and those are the kinds of things we like to write about as a band, more socially driven than anything else.”

The Fixx certainly are doing their job here as they always have in a way you will recognize well.