There are four story arcs in William Gibson's "Mona Lisa Overdrive." One follows a young Japanese girl, daughter to a yakuza big-wig, as she is sent to snowy, archaic London for protection. In another, this mechanic Slick builds massive robots from junk with buzzsaws for arms. He ends up having to take in some cyber- cowboy named "the Count" who's in a constant, coma-like, virtual reality state. The third arc follows Angie, cyberfilm star who's making a drug recovery and trying to deal with all the mysterious voices in her head. Finally, there's Mona. She's a naive teen junkie with a small- time pimp boyfriend in the near- future slums of Florida. Eventually, all the arcs crash together quite brilliantly. If there ever was a perfect soundtrack album for this cyberpunk classic it'd be Curve's Come Clean.

The power- sander guitars and crushing beats of "Chinese Burn" and "Come Clean" is the kind of music Slick would crank on the floor of his garage as he added more menacing killing devices to his "Judge" droid. The adrenalized drum loop of the punk title track sounds remarkably like the opening of Blur's "Song 2," accellerated and laid under the fuzzed vocals. It'd be perfect for the fight scenes. I can hear the trippy cyberscapes of "Coming Up Roses" and "Beyond Reach" in the scene where Mona takes some "wiz" and walks the rainy, neon streets of the Sprawl. Angie's multiple personalities mimics Curve singer Toni Halliday's reservoir of voices. Halliday can growl, coo, seduce, arouse, and frighten-- a blender effect of Beth Gibbons, Siouxie Sioux and Bjork.

As a bonus, Curve's menace and titillation perfectly suits Gibson's female assassin, Sally. As contrived as its become to talk of "electronica and rock" coming together, Curve manages to pull it off with smashing success. You can dance to Come Clean and sing along to it and suffer hearing loss to it.

It's been five years since their last album, but Curve's experience and age shines through each song. And just as Gibson melts poetic imagery and page- turning thrills together, Curve cooks beats, bleeps, screeches, and feedback with hooks and melody.

I hope Hollywood never makes a movie out of "Mona Lisa Overdrive." After all, "Johnny Mnemonic" sucked more than the vacuum of deep space. But if someone does (David Fincher?), Curve's gotta provide the soundtrack. And send royalty checks for the idea my way, care of Pitchfork.

-Brent Dicrescenzo