Perhaps one of the quickest up-and-coming bands of the 2020’s shoegaze renaissance revival so far, Glixen is a Phoenix, Arizona quartet that has spent much of the past two years tracking back and forth across the United States, supporting acts like Turnover, Kraus, Glare, and Tanukichan, leaving a glittering haze in their wake. They also had a spot on last summer’s Coachella lineup.
KRUI crossed paths with them on their blaze across the Midwest last March, where they offered a glimpse behind their curtain of sound. It’s a truly mesmerizing flavor of shoegaze, emphasizing the dreamiest elements without losing its drive. Live, their She Only Said EP was delivered in an all-out assault, forgoing the typical breaks between songs in favor of an ever evolving medley, delivering punishing yet enchanting waves from a static sea emanating from their guitars, through which vocalist Aislinn Ritchie’s haunting melodies hover, searing yet serene.
Despite coming off of as big a year for the band as 2024 was, Glixen shows no signs of slowing down. The release of their latest EP Quiet Pleasures comes paired with news of their first headlining tour across the United States, spanning all four corners of the country and closing with not one, but two appearances on this year’s Coachella stage. Seeming to adopt a similarly sparing level of prolificity to fellow shoegaze cohorts Her New Knife, Glixen has espoused their belief in patience as a virtue by way of their careful release schedule, allowing the atmospheric echoes of She Only Said to reverberate about the shoegaze scene before finally following it up this winter.
Quiet Pleasures manages to take the sound Glixen was working with on their prior EP, and work it into an entirely new gear. It takes more influence from grunge and doomgaze than the more conventional dream pop melodies displayed on She Only Said. The first track “all tied up” sees chugging guitars darkly glimmering, creating a distinct contrast with Ritchie’s vocals, which take a more straightforward role than ever before. Plying yearning discordant melodies, her slightly off-kilter sighs meander amidst the great discord of the instrumentation, perfectly yet imperfectly placed.
“lick the star” features an introduction with the band easily at its dreamiest as singular licks are cast off into a nebulous atmosphere, all at once coming together in a metaphorical big bang. The song then launches another attack on the ears, ending as suddenly as it began, with feedback twisting and withering in the air. “sick silent” sees the band at, for lack of a better word, their evilest. Ritchie reaches into her deeper registers, and the guitars creak and groan under the duress of casting wave after wave of sonic bliss into the aether. Drummer Kiere Johnson is at his best here, absolutely obliterating the drums before him. This is all to prompt guitar player Esteban Santana’s vocal debut, harmonizing gorgeously to deliver a twisted sermon of noise. The track “avoid” sees Glixen at an interesting intersection of soaring darkness, with the tempo slowing significantly as Ritchie’s vocals more resemble moans, stretching bar after bar over the track’s runtime.
Finally, the EP closes with “shut me down”, easily Glixen’s most punishing number up until this point. Once again, Johnson demolishes his drum set for our entertainment as Sonia Garcia’s bass work lights the way forward. The weight played with on this track feels more reminiscent to the punishment of metal acts than the gossamer filigree of She Only Said, taking a left turn even further away from pop sensibility and deeper into a world of dissonance. For a band already moving up the ranks of contemporaries in their field and wandering new avenues, one can only ask: What comes next?
