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.
The Pains of Being Pure at HeartThe Pains of Being Pure at Heart[Slumberland Records; 2009]Links: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart | Slumberland Records | Purchase on InsoundPosted by Elias Isquith on 28 July 2009The Pains of Being Pure at Heart debuts with a concise, catchy and thoroughly conventional record of shoegazing rock. If [...]
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It's hard to argue with a good pop song. If the melody is catchy, the beat moves along, and the words are discernible and fun to sing, you really can't ask for much more. Indie poppers, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, have crafted a self-titled debut that is packed full of simple, sturdy pop songs. Though sometimes placed within the noise pop realm, they would really only fit into the very ed...
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The problem with indie-pop is that regardless of how seamlessly or impressively you fuse the two elements together, it still loses its steam at some point during the listening process. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart attempt a stab at the aforementioned genre with their eponymous debut and almost manage to get away with an entire L.
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Artist: The Pains of Being Pure at HeartAlbum: The Pains of Being Pure at HeartDate Released: February 3, 2009Genre: indie pop, noise pop, shoegazeRating: 8.0Review:The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are the latest shoegaze offering from New York City. This four piece have had critics eating out the palm of their indie-pop hands since the release of this debut self-titled record. With an extensi...
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Hailing from Brooklyn, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart became one of the year’s most talked about indie pop bands with their self-titled debut album becoming an instant classic packed with...for more on all the hype, go to musicuniverse.com.au
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It's hard to argue with a good pop song. If the melody is catchy, the beat moves along, and the words are discernible and fun to sing, you really can't ask for much more. Indie poppers, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, have crafted a self-titled debut that is packed full of simple, sturdy pop songs. Though sometimes placed within the noise pop realm, they would really only fit into the very ed...
More >
The problem with indie-pop is that regardless of how seamlessly or impressively you fuse the two elements together, it still loses its steam at some point during the listening process. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart attempt a stab at the aforementioned genre with their eponymous debut and almost manage to get away with an entire L.
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What's up, summer anthem[via pitchfork] Technorati Us
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Friday night I went out to see The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at San Franisco's Great American Music Hall, a glorious venue that I'll hopefully return to a couple times while I'm visiting here.I dived into their self-titled album (released in February) starting a few weeks back. The band's name had floated by me in a haze of blog buzz, and good or bad, I probably let it pass because it sounded
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So February is shaping up to be a pretty bad ass month. Here in DC it marks the end of winter and the return of fun. Also I will be going to Chile for 10 days mid-month (!!) to surf and just ball out in general. We have some dead-beat friends who chose to move down there after graduating, and I couldn't be more glad (in addition to being insanely jealous). Even more important (maybe) February i...
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Artist Of The Day: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart New York-based musicians Alex Naidus (bass), Kip Berman (guitar/vocals), Kurt Feldman (drums), and Peggy Wang-East (keyboards/vocals) came together to form the Pains of Being Pure at Heart in 2007. With its wall-of-fuzz guitar stylings and sugary pop underpinnings, the band nodded to any number of [...]
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It's rare that in 2009 a quality pop album creeps under the radar without any hype attached, but that's exactly what happened with the self-titled rookie outing from Brooklyn based four-piece The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Operating somewhere in between the fuzzy hum of shoegaze and the boom-boom-CRASH of amateurish garage (the good kind), The Pains... sound like the composite sketch of eve...
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At the start of the current decade it was the spirit of late '70s punk as well as early '80s post-punk and new wave that became the dominant influences on most of the new bands of the time (The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol) that came to shake things up and bring the indie-rock sound back into the spotlight. As we come closer to the end of the Zeros, it is the underground guitar sound of the
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One of our current new love affairs, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart bring their sugary dose of fuzzy nostalgia to the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Like a well informed ode to the great guitar driven bands of yesteryear (think My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Smiths, etc), The Pains of ...
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It's rare that in 2009 a quality pop album creeps under the radar without any hype attached, but that's exactly what happened with the self-titled rookie outing from Brooklyn based four-piece The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Operating somewhere in between the fuzzy hum of shoegaze a ...
More >
The Pains of Being Pure at HeartThe Pains of Being Pure at Heart[Slumberland Records; 2009]Links: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart | Slumberland Records | Purchase on InsoundPosted by Elias Isquith on 28 July 2009The Pains of Being Pure at Heart debuts with a concise, catchy and thoroughly conventional record of shoegazing rock. If [...]
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Contender |
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| 2 Come Saturday |
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| 3 Young Adult Friction |
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| 4 This Love Is Fucking Right! |
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| 5 The Tenure Itch |
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| 6 Stay Alive |
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| 7 Everything with You |
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| 8 A Teenager in Love |
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| 9 Hey Paul |
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| 10 Gentle Sons |
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Click to purchase…
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 "The Pains of Being Pure at Heart")
