Pure X - "Things In My Head" / "One Day At A Time"

Pure X songs remind me of quicksand. Or maybe it's a soak in a warm tub of thick honey. Once a song starts and the sweet stoned nothings are whispered into your ears and buttery chunks of flanger-effected guitar slowly melt over you, all eyes glaze into fixed hypnotic stares and all movements temporarily freeze in time. Maybe I'm getting carried away, but every time I hear a new song by this great Austin band, I start thinking about the word 'viscosity,' which essentially describes the ratio of resistive force to flow in a fluid. Yes, Pure X's music flows—it moves forward in time—but there's something heavy and obstructive continually pushing back against it. For every sweet blissful melody, there's a dissonant streak of darkness; and for every snap of snare in time, there's a backlash of unhurried sludgy sighing guitar. And it's one hell of a convincingly gorgeous contrast.

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Pure X - "Things In My Head" (from  Crawling Up The Stairs)
Pure X - "One Day At A Time" (Willie Nelson cover)