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As part of a double LP the bay area shoegaze band Pure Hex released part 1 as their EP "Spilling". This album came out on Friday, May 17th, and I've not stopped listening to it since.
I found Pure Hex late April this year while looking at similar artists to "Slow Crush", another shoegaze revival band; who I found when looking at shows in my area, when I stumbled across Puppy Angst!
But I was listening to Slow Crush and saw this band "Pure Hex" which is a rad freaking name for a band. Pure Hex sounds like a sabbath style band akin to Electric Citizen. But I threw it on and gosh! It's just wonderful. I really liked their newer singles direction and production so I was excited for the album they said they were singles of.
They finally released the EP and gosh gosh gosh! It's everything I could've hoped for, and then some!
We had singles: "Fray", "She Comes Up", and "Not Animal" already so on the EP the only new songs were: "Infinity Spin", "Spilling", and "Web and Wick".
This EP is solid throughout its entire 26 minute run time. Each song hovering around 4-5 minutes its a tight EP that still delivers. Honestly, I forget sometimes its only 6 songs. As a fan of niche genres having 6 songs is a "long album" (Elder's most recent album was only 5; and I mean Bell Witch did another single track album :P)
My favorite track is currently "She Comes Up" which is a bleak song. It's structurally pretty straight forward: Intro-chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, outro (which is like a new chorus). And it's how the song evolves upon itself as it goes on.
First we start with a really neat guitar twang that's almost off putting and pulls your attention in. Then a variation on the chorus. We sit back a bit, we don't slow it down but the band leans back a bit and leaves some space for the vocals. We listen to the singers beautiful and haunting voice until we get punched back up to the chorus again. This chorus only has a variation on the last part where we actually add the final bit. But this time we drop back even further than the first time with a nice bass interlude. Even though the actual verse is fairly identical in terms of music behind the lyrics it feels even more somber having come out of that interlude. We get the intro dissonant guitar thing, then we pop back up to the chorus which, this time is punched up even more with more intense drum fills. Previously, the chorus was a fairly standard, and familiar, drum beat. Where now its frenetic and while the tempo hasn't changed makes the energy escalate greatly. But for the last line of the chorus we settle back into the original chorus grove until we drop out for the outro.
For the outro it goes into half-time. We have no drums or bass, just very direct guitar chords strummed out. Our singer comes in with a new stanza. Then the rest of the band comes back in and we build back up the energy. The drums pounding and then we're released into a shoegaze staple wall of sound beneath the new stanza again.
Having the previous chorus being the fastest feeling and most intense part up till this point, topping it in half-time just… it makes this song wonderful in every imaginable way.
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Bonus fact: The intro drums to the EP in "Infinity Spin" remind me so much of Fall Out Boy's "Sugar, We're Going Down" that it makes me laugh every time I start the album.
But the structure of their songs have this nice variance where you don't feel the repetition. They suck you in. "Infinity Spin", for example, is a really empty song from a shoegaze perspective. The drums are really the most prominent instrument, besides the vocals, on the track. The first chorus is the most relaxed part of the song. And then for the final chorus before the outro the drums are just not present. The pre-choruses are more intense and stick out way more. Until the outro-chorus where the band all comes back in after a squeal of feedback. And the drums being the lead instrument of the track makes the outro-chorus feel even bigger.
"Web and Wick", too, has a very loose structure with it's chorus being essentially just "oh no, oo ooo ooo". Each verse builds up creating this wave of build up and drop out until we reach the bridge/ second half of the song which is also very bleak. It's not exactly in half-time like "She Comes Up" since the song was always very slow but its very droning and flowing. Carrying you away like a river, which is something you want from a shoegaze track. But not with waves of noise and sound but just emotion and rhythm. Then this fuzzy, puched through, bass outro. A band having solo focus on bass guitar is always a win in my book.
I found this entire EP really well done. The songwriting, all of the performances, the production, (they make great use of the stereo space; which is vital for thick full shoegaze tracks). It has everything. I seriously love this EP and can't wait for part 2.