... Heavy ...
Pure
X will release their second album, Crawling Up The Stairs on May 14 on
worldwide on Merok and Acephale Records in North America.
Crawling Up The Stairs is the second LP from Austin, Texas’ Pure X.
Made up of principal members Nate Grace, Jesse Jenkins and Austin
Youngblood, they stay true to the dense sound they explored on their
last album, Pleasure, but add twinkling atmospherics and a new clarity
to their carefully cultivated, emotionally heavy songs.Crawling
Up The Stairs is an album born from emotional turmoil. For much of
2012, Grace was laid up with a serious leg injury. During the recording
period, he had no insurance, no money, and if he ever was going to walk
again, he needed to have surgery. Grace had no idea if he’d get the
money together, and was consumed with doubt, unable to sleep. After a
cathartic but torturous night of insomnia, heavy with world-worry and
intermittent nightmares, Grace emerged feeling exhausted and different.
Not better or worse, but different. Ready to heal. Crawling is the
result of that. Track by track, Grace, Youngblood and Jenkins-who shares
vocal and songwriting duties-drag themselves through a bad year.As Grace was wrestling with his own demons, Jenkins’ was figuring things out as well. On the gorgeous “Thousand Year Old Child,” Jenkins is wrestling with getting older and being uncertain about his future. It’s a universal feeling rendered personal by Jenkins’ heartbreakingly spare lyrics.
But Crawling isn’t entirely dark. Album closer “All of the Future (All of the Past)” is the record’s most optimistic song. As if Grace, Jenkins and Youngblood have finally emerged from an endless parade of bummer moments with newly optimistic perspectives on life. “I can see the light/just got to stay alive,” Grace sings. It might read as desperate, but Grace, for the first time, sounds confident that they’ll make it no matter what.
