Pyrex - S/T
Pyrex seems inconsonant by nature. Harmonious and affronting, they play a blend of hardcore punk and post punk as likely to buzz as it is to swing into the haunting melodies of Siekiera. It creates a bizarre atmosphere; a presque vu in which you can almost always near place the influence but can never quite pinpoint it. Their debut self-titled LP, Pyrex, only expands on this phenomenon, presenting eight tracks of familiar-yet-not punk as appropriate to the zeitgeist as they are to the Killed by Death compilations.
“Theme” kicks things off with a perverse take on power pop. Sitting somewhere between The Descendents and TSOL, it begs the question of what may happen to Milo if he had abandoned The Beatles for Bauhaus. “Touch” is a variation of a theme as the shrill riffs and steady grooving bass indicative of surf rock dip in and out of hardcore fervor. At once frenzied and canorous, it creates clashing concoction tailor-made for the pit.
“Erasure” rolls in squawking with a classic pogo beat as support before settling into the more subdued “Sleep Therapy”. Sauntering along moodily, it effortlessly invokes the quiet seductiveness of those early goth rock pioneers. Perhaps the most directly post punk oriented song on the album, it is immediately contrasted by the heavy hitting “Neptune”. Where “Sleep Therapy” waltzes listlessly through the abandoned courtyard, “Neptune” stomps, offering as good of a reason to two-step as any.
“Lizard Teeth” and “Cool Television” reverse course once again. As high energy as they come, these pseudo-egg punk hits are as loose and jangly as the best Uranium Club has to offer. Attitudes sour once again with album closer “Conditioner”. Once again employing their ever impressive Milo-meets-Siouxsie twist on those too bright riffs of yore, Pyrex churns through this frothing, snarling beast with a pointed sincerity.
With their self-titled debut, Pyrex creates a frowzy amalgam owing as much to Devo as it does to Christian Death. Undulating between the eccentric and the macabre, it is a zany superlative more than the sum of its parts.
