Artist: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Album: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Year: 2009
Grade: 4.5 pretzels
Picking the right band name is incredibly important. More and more, bands these days don’t seem to understand this, when they pick impossibly unwieldy names like I Set My Friends On Fire or Scary Kids Scaring Kids (these names come courtesy of the Warped Tour website). As a general rule, anything that can stand alone as a sentence should be avoided. Bands apparently don’t realize that they are saddling their entire future careers with these names. On top of that, many people are put off by these sprawling titles, since they virtually reek of pretentiousness. Bands with bad names start on the wrong foot. They are already fighting an uphill battle just to be taken seriously as a band, let alone considered great music.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have managed to transcend this in my mind. I will probably never know what exactly compelled them to pick such a cringe-inducing name, but I can sleep easier knowing that they’ve managed to record a wonderfully compelling record of bouncy, dense guitar-pop. Taking the best bits from the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Stone Roses and Belle & Sebastian before putting them all in a blender and hitting frappe, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart succeed despite their name.
There’s been a noticeable renaissance of shoegaze music lately, particularly the band Deerhunter and their assorted side projects. But while these bands have certainly captured the dense swirl of guitars that defines the genre, they do so at the expense of the thrilling momentum that drove shoegaze’s finest, like My Bloody Valentine or Ride. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart remedy that, taking shoegaze out of the hands of avant-guard guitar noodlers and back to its poppier roots. Instead of wasting time crafting exquisite, shimmering guitar sculptures, the songs come tumbling forward with all the sun-clipped exuberance of early Stone Roses or Happy Mondays. It all sounds undeniably young, fun and joyful.
It also helps that TPOBPAH (ouch…) have some solid vocals soaring over all the tumult. Taking a page out of the Belle & Sebastian songbook, frontman Kip Berman has refined a sort of Stuart Murdoch-esque purr, that delivers lines like “this love is fucking right” like he was saying, “yes, sir, I’d like a lemon wedge for my tea, please.” With keyboardist Peggy Wang providing some nice female harmonies, the vocals provide some calmness to counteract the charging guitar and bass. There’s nothing radical here in terms of subject matter (songs have titles like “Young Adult Friction” and “A Teenager In Love”), but TPOBPAH deliver them with such energy and assuredness that it’s hard not to get lost in the positive vibes that come flooding out of every song.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart seem to be following closely in the footsteps of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Both were bands laboring under horrific names before some crucial patronage from the almighty Pitchfork brought them to the national eye. Both manage to create strong enough music that we forgive them for putting more than four words in their band names. CYHSY became a huge indie phenomenon and I’m expecting TPOBPAH to do the same. But let observers beware: just name your band something sensible. It’ll be much easier in the long run.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have managed to transcend this in my mind. I will probably never know what exactly compelled them to pick such a cringe-inducing name, but I can sleep easier knowing that they’ve managed to record a wonderfully compelling record of bouncy, dense guitar-pop. Taking the best bits from the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Stone Roses and Belle & Sebastian before putting them all in a blender and hitting frappe, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart succeed despite their name.
There’s been a noticeable renaissance of shoegaze music lately, particularly the band Deerhunter and their assorted side projects. But while these bands have certainly captured the dense swirl of guitars that defines the genre, they do so at the expense of the thrilling momentum that drove shoegaze’s finest, like My Bloody Valentine or Ride. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart remedy that, taking shoegaze out of the hands of avant-guard guitar noodlers and back to its poppier roots. Instead of wasting time crafting exquisite, shimmering guitar sculptures, the songs come tumbling forward with all the sun-clipped exuberance of early Stone Roses or Happy Mondays. It all sounds undeniably young, fun and joyful.
It also helps that TPOBPAH (ouch…) have some solid vocals soaring over all the tumult. Taking a page out of the Belle & Sebastian songbook, frontman Kip Berman has refined a sort of Stuart Murdoch-esque purr, that delivers lines like “this love is fucking right” like he was saying, “yes, sir, I’d like a lemon wedge for my tea, please.” With keyboardist Peggy Wang providing some nice female harmonies, the vocals provide some calmness to counteract the charging guitar and bass. There’s nothing radical here in terms of subject matter (songs have titles like “Young Adult Friction” and “A Teenager In Love”), but TPOBPAH deliver them with such energy and assuredness that it’s hard not to get lost in the positive vibes that come flooding out of every song.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart seem to be following closely in the footsteps of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Both were bands laboring under horrific names before some crucial patronage from the almighty Pitchfork brought them to the national eye. Both manage to create strong enough music that we forgive them for putting more than four words in their band names. CYHSY became a huge indie phenomenon and I’m expecting TPOBPAH to do the same. But let observers beware: just name your band something sensible. It’ll be much easier in the long run.
I think the rule should be, if youre going to have a long name, try to keep it to at most a four (4) letter acronym. ie: RHCP, RATM, CSNY, etc.
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