B-Side Guys

Denver’s Pax Simile have a useful self-description: progressive but decidedly not prog. The distinction matters. Where prog leans into complexity for its own sake, Pax Simile use odd structures as a delivery mechanism rather than a destination, and “Twist” is probably the clearest demonstration of what that looks like in practice.

The song builds through its first few minutes with the patient confidence of a band that knows what’s coming. The verses work a recurring image of conformity and its costs: “fishes flashing in their schools,” the pack that will kill you if you don’t swallow. The chorus lands as a taunt more than a question. “Do you want any more?” gets repeated until it stops feeling rhetorical and starts feeling like a dare.

Then at 2:55, as advertised, the track opens up into a full jam that earns the runway the first half laid down. It’s the kind of moment that separates bands who understand song architecture from bands who just know how to play their instruments. The Radiohead and Wilco influence surfaces here less in any specific sonic reference than in the shared belief that a pop song can hold more weight than it’s expected to.

The closing horn-driven finale reframes everything before it. What started as a fairly tight indie rock track ends somewhere considerably larger and stranger, which is exactly what the lyrics are asking for. “Better forget and get forgot” is the last thing you hear, delivered over a wall of brass that seems almost designed to make forgetting impossible.