The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Slumberland
By Mike Randall
There’s something inherently captivating about the almost folkloric trickle-down effect of music. A band that didn’t even have living members at the time of an artistic movement can channel the energy and emotion from decades past, combining those elements to make them sound fresh and relevant, or at the very least timelessly nostalgic. Brooklyn’s The Pains of Being Pure At Heart do just that, drawing a thick shoegaze-pop sound with the pulse of new wave and dance-punk that seems tailor-made for early 1990’s college radio. The difference here is TPOBYAH has touch points as close to the Byrds as they do Black Tambourine.
Buzz has been building around this four-piece since 2007, when a string of singles and EPs began making the rounds on the indie circuit. Now, with their debut full-length, they prove the praise and heady comparisons were accurate as they tear through ten short, punchy tracks with a youthful energy and an ever-present melodic sensibility. The record’s urgency is immediate, as the album opening “Contender” demonstrates through showers of fuzz intersecting with a Rickenbacker strum. There’s much of the same during “This Love Is Fucking Right,” finding the band sounding like a fuzzier, more punk version of early R.E.M., complete with cascading Byrds-like arpeggios (the track is also their answer to label-mate The Field Mice’s "This Love Is Not Wrong"). The band discovers its inner Smiths through the jubilant new wave swing of “The Tenure Itch,” as vocalist/guitarist Kip’s (band members’ last names are playfully withheld) huge, hook-y chorus channels Morrissey, complete with a narrative about a friend conforming to the will of a manipulative lover. Songs like “Hey Paul,” the epic “Gentle Sons” and especially “Stay Alive,” are all convergences of noise, pop and melody at its most enjoyable, layering strummed guitars and sparse keyboards that build without losing tunefulness.
Thematically, TPOBYAH balance their sonic blitz with exuberant tracks that are melancholically and rhythmically upbeat. “Come Saturday” is a catchy number about the pitfalls and benefits of a long distance romance, with enough new wave bounce and “Ooh ooh ooh” hooks to fill your memory for weeks. The anthemic “Young Adult Friction” covers a rendezvous in a library and finds Kip and keyboardist Peggy showcasing a charming Frank Black/Kim Deal vocal dynamic. “A Teenager In Love” is a track that sounds like Peter, Bjorn and John without all the bells and whistles, finding the duo pairing up once more on lines like, “You don’t need a friend when you’re a teenager in love with Christ and heroin.”
Lots of bands wear influences on their sleeves to a doughnut effect, filling out the edges while leaving the heart completely vacant. In regard to their predecessors, TPOBYAH is more like a jelly doughnut. It might be clear where their music originates, but the difference here isn’t a matter of first or second wave because their debut is as good as most from that era. They were just born a little late.
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