Glixen, a Phoenix-based shoegaze heavyweight, says its new single, "Lick the Star," is like getting lost in a dream you never want to escape. Taking a title from Sofia Coppola's beloved cult short film, "Lick the Star, "Glixen delivers a swirling, heady dosage of what has recently become one of the most compelling names in modern shoegaze.
From its first shimmering notes, Aislinn Ritchie's ethereal singing hovers like a ghost above a roiling wall of distortion supplied by the guitarist Esteban Santana, the bassist Sonia Garcia, and the drummer Keire Johnson. The blend of beauty and brutality is immediately hushed melodies tumble into banks of reverb-battered intensity. It's a sonic push and pull that recalls My Bloody Valentine's woozy disorder, t. A.T.u's intoxicating melodicism and the mechanical heft of Godflesh while making it its own Glixen-ized thing.
There's this flickering tension in "Lick the Star," a particular kind of cinematic unease that sends a chill from beginning to end. Built around a hypnotic groove and featuring the golden touch of producer Sonny DiPerri (My Bloody Valentine, DIIV), "Lick the Star" highlights the band's knack for making intimate and massive soundscapes.
Glixen has been making a name for themselves in the shoegaze revival, sharing stages with Interpol, DIIV, Narrow Head, and Nothing and honing their sound. If "Lick the Star" is a measure of it, they're not merely riding the wave. They're helping to push it into its next evolution.