Crosspross Bells

Knife in the Water's unique mix of bleak Texas pop and country creates the perfect soundtrack for downing a fifth of bourbon alone in your car, parked outside your ex's house in the dead of winter. You also may or may not be loading a gun. With a subtle blend of organ, guitar, pedal steel, bass, and drums, they conjure the barren stretches of Texas plains, the faces in dusty bars, and the smell of cheap perfume and sleazy motel rooms.

An Austin five-piece with an academic background in avant-garde minimalism and blood-bucket honky tonk, Knife in the Water is capable and serious in executing their boundary-blurring vision of unusual modern American sounds. "Crosspross Bells" finds them moving into more psychedelic-abstract territory than their previous long- players, "Plays One Sound and Others" and "Red River." A resigned spiritual feel is evident on "Crosshair Chapel," and "From the Catbird Seat" bears the lysergic influence of the Thirteen Floor Elevators. The five songs on this EP share the themes of indifference and decay, and find a strange natural calm in both states.