In many ways, shoegaze bands are the Impressionists of modern guitar music. Although they’ve traded the brush for layers of guitar fuzz, they paint in similarly broad strokes, more concerned with the full picture than accuracy or slavish attention to detail. It’s a philosophy that Texan trio Pure X (formerly Pure Ecstasy) have exhibited on all their releases so far, including debut LP Pleasure. Although the album is split into 10 tracks, its waves of distant distortion and blissed-out bass-lines create a steady, heady atmosphere throughout, the songs bleeding into each other with only small shifts in mood or tempo to mark their passing.

On tracks like opener ‘Heavy Air’, Nate Grace’s far-off vocals and languorous guitar provide texture, with Jesse Jenkins’ bass and Austin Youngblood’s glacial drumming quietly doing the legwork to push the songs forward and keep them from descending into navel-gazing jam sessions. While the 90s shoegaze association is obvious, Pure X clearly have more in their record collections than old My Bloody Valentine albums. Heavy elements of prog and psychedelic rock abound too; the likes of the title track and ‘Twisted Mirror’ are dimly reminiscent of early Doors or the Grateful Dead in their hazy heyday.

Although the album gently veers from sun-streaked euphoria (‘Voices’) to morning-after melancholia (‘Surface’), this isn’t a set of songs likely to grab the listener by the ears from the first spin. Brief snatches aside, Grace’s vocals are too indistinct to make an impression lyrically, and the tracks share a blurry, submerged quality that occasionally steps over the line from mysterious to unengaging. Nevertheless, it’s an album that will softly bury itself into your subconscious in the long-term. It might not be a party album, but as far as comedowns go, this one’s better than most.

Pure X – Pleasure