I honestly did not know what to expect when I listened to The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart’s debut self titled album. Well I will tell you this much, the album is a great 34 minutes of shoe-gaze, lo-fi rock. I always have had a warm spot for noise bands with melodies tucked away beneath layers. The songs on their debut are straight forward rock/pop oriented songs that are glowing with melodies. Right off the bat each song made an impression on me with clean acoustic guitars and sharp distorted guitars over the soothing male/female vocals that allowed The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart to craft one of the coolest sounds of 2009. Songs like “Come Saturday” and “Young Adult Friction” are instantly catchy with a driving beat, Belle & Sebastian like vocals and perfectly constructed melodies. The production on this album is perfect for their sound with everything mixed together over the fuzziness to give them the out of body sound they were striving for. “The Tenure Itch” and other tracks have dreamy characteristic’s about them. These songs remind you of just chilling out during the summer with no fucking worries at all. Listen to “Stay Alive” and tell me that it doesn’t invoke memories of just chilling out by the beach with your friends during the summer, having a cold one. You know, those simplier times. This is a really pleasant record, full of all the things that makes indie music great.
It was good to see pitchfork give their album a positive review, as now the band will get well deserved attention. I have been enjoying this album for a good part of the new year and it has only gotten better and better. I think this is my 2nd favorite record of 2009 so far (with MPP way up front). The new Andrew Bird record and A.C. Newman record were all enjoyable for example, but I didn’t connect to those records as much/as fast as I did with The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Man 2009 is really giving us some solid offerings.
[mp3] : The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Come Saturday
[mp3] : The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Young Adult Friction
[mp3] : The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Stay Alive
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