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Avg: 4.0 (775 ratings)
- Date Released: February 3, 2009
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Brit Pop, Indie Rock
- Label: Slumberland / IODA
A effervescent pop debut celebrating the exuberance of youth in all its John Hughes glory
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We Say...
It's no insult, and not much hyperbole, to call The Pains of Being Pure at Heart the first debut in years that takes an uncomplicated stance on being young. Youth feels great, and more than that, it matters. Totaling less than 35 minutes, the album's ten tracks float by with the same butterfly anticipation that fills the last day of school before summer break. These are tight, classic pop songs, their craftsmanship less a product of music-geek encyclopedism than a basic this-sounds-right instinct. The opening bars of "Young Adult Friction" recalls "Love Vigilantes," that terrifically atypical New Order track from 1985's Low-Life; lyrically and musically, "Come Saturday" suggests an improbable double-time mash-up of two Cure staples: "I can't stand to see your picture / On the dresser where I left you / You're 80 miles away, Tuesday / But come Saturday, you'll come to stay." (ie: "Pictures of You" and "Friday I'm in Love.") Incandescent and twinkling, "A Teenager in Love" is the John Hughes/Gossip Girl sound of coming-of-age America, even if what the chorus actually says is, "But you don't need a friend when you're / A teenager in love with Christ and heroin." That "Heroin" sounds like "heaven" in that last line is a result of The Pains' most obvious aesthetic distinction: a fuzzed-out, reverb-heavy sound that swaddles the vocals in a velveteen blanket of noise. Pop this dedicated to youthful exuberance must be delivered in the native tongue: a dazed mumble.
What's most refreshing about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is its refusal to speak as metaphor or microcosm for something grander, more adult. The line "Strange teenager, waiting for death at 19," is about exactly that: one strange teenager, not Mortality, or Anomie, or, for that matter, Global Warming or the War in Iraq. That The Pains so gleefully find adolescence beautiful and fraught in itself doesn't mean their LP's all prom dates and locker-bound addictions; even the grad-school crowd can't help chasing the painful purity of "Young Adult Friction": "Between the stacks in the library / Not like anyone stopped to see / We came, they went, our bodies spent / Among the dust and microfiche." So discover the young at decade's end: We are the ones we have been waiting for. -
They Say...
The New York indie pop quartet the Pains of Being Pure at Heart built up a pretty rabid fan base in the indie pop community prior to the release of their self-titled debut record in early 2009. For this, they could thank a string of excellent singles and EPs that began in 2007 (songs from which appear on the album) but more than that they can put it down to the fact that their sound melds together the trademarked sounds of many beloved indie and noise pop bands into one shiny ball of sound and melancholy. Mixed in skillfully are the sonic assaults of early My Bloody Valentine, the hazy sweetness of Ride, the introspective and usually morose lyrical approach perfected by the Field Mice, the sensitive and tender vocals purveyed by most Sarah records bands, and the rhythmic drive of early-'90s Amer-Indie bands the likes of which more often than not found themselves on Slumberland (Lilys, the Ropers, Velocity Girl -- whose Archie Moore ably mixes the album). It all could come off like a pastiche with little more than nostalgic value but the band acts as if it were the first time anyone ever captured this kind of sound, never sitting back and aping the past but instead giving it a healthy boost. Plus, they write some very good songs. "Come Saturday," "This Love Is Fucking Right!" (their answer to the Field Mice's "This Love Is Not Wrong"), or "Young Adult Friction" all would have been in serious rotation on a hip college radio station in 1992. Best of all is the amazingly hooky "Everything with You," which stands as the equal of anything the shoegaze poppers or pop losers cranked out back in the day. If you had gone out and bought the 7," after one play you would have tacked the sleeve up on your wall and played the record until the grooves wore out. It's that good. It lifts the album from pretty good to almost great. A little more variation from song to song, a little more of their own sound, or another song or two as compelling as the best stuff here and the POBPAH's debut would have been classic. Settling for impressive is fair enough and good enough for fans of loud, fuzzy, and heartfelt indie noise pop.
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| 01. |  |
Contender |
2:40 |
|
| 02. | |
Come Saturday |
3:17 |
|
| 03. | |
Young Adult Friction |
4:07 |
|
| 04. | |
This Love Is Fucking Right! |
3:15 |
|
| 05. | |
The Tenure Itch |
3:45 |
|
| 06. | |
Stay Alive |
4:56 |
|
| 07. | |
Everything With You |
2:59 |
|
| 08. | |
A Teenager In Love |
3:24 |
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| 09. | |
Hey Paul |
2:03 |
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| 10. | |
Gentle Sons |
4:32 |
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10 Total Tracks, 34:58 Total Length
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Credits
- Archie Moore - Mixing
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