Angel

It’s a heartfelt, narcotic odyssey through the seductive pleasures of lava lamps and black light posters, a kind of escapism that comes in the same strange, silk-screened colors as the novelty lighters and t-shirts one might find at a backwoods southwestern gas station.

Almost defiantly ramshackle the mix of classy songcraft and threadbare instrumentation nonetheless makes for a compelling listen. [Jun 2014, p.118]

Pure X have emerged from a dark abyss into beatific splendour.

All things considered, Angel probably lacks the invention and imagination that it’d really require in order to be counted amongst the genuine candidates for the business end of the year’s ‘best-of’ lists; the sheer stylistic versatility that they’ve demonstrated, though, in swapping the claustrophobia of Crawling Up the Stairs for Angel’s wide-open spaces, should be enough to ensure that they’ll be there or there abouts.

Angel serves as a balm in another era defined by mass pessimism and doubt.

Angel tells a story but it's nothing you haven't heard before.

Overall, Pure X’s immersive charm remains intact. Only ‘Rain’ betrays the heady sonics of old.

Angel feels like a continuous, slow-motion sunset on a coastline in a dream. It's new territory for Pure X, but when the elements of '70s radio rock and Sunday-morning soul come together, it results in some of their most tuneful moments.