“Dry Ice”
from the album Pleasure
2011
iTunes
After a few scattered 7″s, Pure Ecstasy decided to up and change their name to Pure X for their debut full-length. But Pure X are hardly suffering from a personality crisis — a San Francisco cover band already had the former handle copyrighted, so the abbreviation occurred out of necessity. For those of us who heard something special in loose, wandering tracks like 2009 B-side “You’re in It Now” or “Voices” a year later, nearly everything on Pleasure will feel like a welcome distillation of the elements that made those songs sound promising. In turn, the band’s new moniker should seem completely fitting: No longer just a kick-around project from three Austin dudes, Pure X have become the refined and elemental version of their former selves.
Fans of those early singles don’t need to worry too much. Pure X remain very much attached to their singular style. Jesse Jenkins’ bass still sounds peanut-butter sticky, while Nate Grace’s guitars showcase pond-ripple textures and Mideast-tinged tones one moment and hemorrhage syrupy feedback the next. Like grunge for beachcombers or shoegaze for people happy to be alive, Pleasure is all about texture and patience, stretched to ensure maximum zoneage. Anything MDMA-related about the moniker is a total misnomer — this sounds like music made by people who mainline Benadryl.
Sure, the album’s blown-out guitars, dusky shoreline vibes, and drug-sick crawl can seem awfully familiar. But Pure X aren’t just coasting on shaggy fumes. For one, this is a terrific-sounding record, built for headphones and high volume. Recorded live with no overdubs, everything emulsifies beatifically while a disorienting quality still looms, like riding in a four-door on the freeway with only the back left window down.
Pure X also set themselves apart by both honoring their influences and recombining them in interesting ways. Opener “Heavy Air” sounds like a chopped ‘n’ screwed Real Estate, while the new version of “Voices” suggests My Bloody Valentine channeling the Everly Brothers. After all, these songs owe a lot to the starry-eyed romantic ballads of the late 1950s and early ’60s. Instead of harnessing the rebel cool of that era, Pure X get lost in the simplicity and slow-burn daydreaminess, stoking these characteristics with uniquely visceral reverb and a zonked tunefulness that impart a vaporous sensuality.
But the most defining and pleasurable thing about Pleasure is the guitars — impressive for a record that doesn’t care about show-off guitar shit at all. Grace lets his pedals do most of the talking, gracefully sussing out emotional detail with subtle melody while still creating memorable moments, like the cheap firework burnout at the end of “Half Here.” Pure X may not be breaking new ground, but as far as deadbeat summer vibes done right go, Pleasure is one killer drag.