Arriving two years after Women, which found the quasi-instrumental psych rock combo expanding their nostalgic, style-shifting sound with string arrangements and guest vocals, Pur Jus is so named because it gets back to basics.
Inspired by near constant touring, the album was entirely written, performed, recorded (live in the studio), and mixed by the Bergen, Norway-based trio, using only guitars (Øyvind Blomstrøm), bass (Chris Holm), drums and percussion (Kim Åge Furuhaug), keyboards (Blomstrøm and Holm), and the occasional vocals. The results may be less diverse and dramatic than their predecessors by comparison, but grooves and chill-out feels are still in plentiful supply.
The album kicks things off with a drum fill…

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…and plenty of guitar echo on the druggy, dreamily melodic instrumental “The Carneddau,” a track named after a mountain range in Wales and which manages to be cinematic nonetheless. The breezy and drowsy “Lakeside” is up next, offering a warm, hypnotic quality that’s greatly assisted by wordless, Beach Boys-like vocals reminiscent of Holm’s former project, Young Dreams. The album continues through the livelier “Echo Chamber,” with its noodly guitar lines, keyboard percussion, warped keys, and atmospheric vocals (this time including lyrics like “There she goes/Driving down the coast”); the slinkier “Rev Super”; the yearning, more whimsical “Spark” (which also has some lyrics); and a proper song, the two-minute “Lifeblood,” in which Holm laments that “Life moves so fast/Like we’re flying through the past.”

With Pur Jus itself messing with the experience of time, the half-hour set seems to end in two blinks of an eye, between which it deliciously distracts, slithers, and soothes. — AMG

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