Artist – Album: The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains
of Being Pure At Heart
Released: 3rd
February 2009
Sounds Like: It’s 20 years older than it actually is.
Amongst many other equally great and important things, the
early nineties brought us The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Sonic the Hedgehog and
shoegaze music – the latter so named because the main players would often spend
a lot of their stage time staring at their feet. It’s best proponents included
the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive, who all managed to combine
beautiful layers of distorted guitars with mumbled vocals that followed catchy
pop melodies.
Back then Kip Berman, Peggy Wang and the rest of The Pains
of Being Pure At Heart would still have been in some New York primary school,
playing with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures and probably yet to
even hear of an effects pedal, yet somehow their self-titled debut authentically
feels like a forgotten album from that time. It’s not so much an update of that
older sound but a continuation of it, as if it never went away.
From the rousing ‘Come
Saturday’ to the giddy ‘A Teenager in
Love’, this record is an accomplished and confident first attempt. Chief
single ‘Young Adult Friction’ emerges
from the distortion to become a hook-laden anthem and went on to be named as
one of the best tracks of 2009 in various end-of-year lists. The second half is
slightly weaker, with the less memorable tunes, but all in all the future (or
their take on the past) looks promising for The Pains of Being Pure At Heart.
Albumaday... rating:
7/10
1. Contender
– 2:40
2. Come
Saturday – 3:17
3. Young
Adult Friction – 4:07
4. This
Love Is Fucking Right! – 3:15
5. The
Tenure Itch – 3:45
6. Stay
Alive – 4:56
7. Everything
with You – 2:59
8. A
Teenager in Love – 3:24
9. Hey
Paul – 2:03
10. Gentle
Sons – 4:32
Listen to ‘Young Adult
Friction’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4itzHRpltQ
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