Album Review: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Belong

[Slumberland / Fortuna Pop!, 2011]

The new Pains album is finally available to stream! I've embedded it at the bottom of the post, if you haven't already heard it.

As a whole, the record is about social misfits, and how there is 'hope' for them, about how there is a place for everyone. It goes into this subject so much that you could almost call it a concept album. The title, 'Belong', is the perfect word to sum this up, the title track is a great opener, its chorus setting up the singer as someone who 'just doesn't belong'. Track 2, 'Heaven's Gonna Happen Now', has been played live for a while, with its wobbly trumpet-like synth refrain at the side of the verse and stunningly good lyrics about abandoning the family home and moving to 'another town', expanding the boundaries of your life and finding a place for yourself. 'Heart In Your Heartbreak' has been around for a while, and my love of it is well known to readers of this blog, at least. It is more of a standalone song, in my mind - lyrically, it is a bit of an outlier on the album.

'The Body' is the first departure from the Pains norm, coupling a vocal melody that invokes 'Atmosphere' by Joy Divison and lyrics about being uncomfortable in your own skin with synth arpeggios and a layer of fuzz. It, as with the next few tracks, is more of a laid-back wash - more like 'Stay Alive' than 'Come Saturday', say. In itself, I'm not sure of it as a track - it doesn't really do very much. But then again, neither does the next track, 'Anne With An E', and I think that is probably my favourite song on the album. It is another song that contrasts singer Kip Berman's new life with how he used to be, presumably when he was in the late teens - 'The posters on the wall that were our only friends, their lives we never knew, but oh how we imagined'. The guitar tones on this song, and the synth sheen, are absolutely stunning - even without any lyrics, this could be an incredibly affecting song.

'Even In Dreams' is more of a classic Pains song, with quiet verses and a singalong chorus (I can see this song being very good live, along the same lines as 'Young Adult Friction' and 'The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart') sitting on top of a layer of soft guitars and punching drums. More of a straight love song, it still focuses on the differences between the singer and the rest of the world ('Yeah, there's nobody like you, is that why they don't like you like I do?') but this song and the last show that he is beginning to carve out a niche in the social spectrum of the kind he could only imagine back when he was an outcast somewhere where he 'just didn't  belong'.

'My Terrible Friend' is a welcome return to the upbeat dancey fuzz-pop. It is, again, ostensibly a bit of a departure from the theme, but shows how much the character from 'Belong' has changed over the course of the album - the line 'Everyone is pretty and fun, everyone is lovely and young, everyone is gentle and gone, but everyone’s just everyone' shows a marked change in point of view, and is a kind of summation of the whole album up to this point. Also, and this is a very important thing, this song is just incredibly fun - I think I might have understated this element of the music so far, but TPOBPAH really are one of the most enjoyable bands to listen to around at the moment. They're able to get you thinking about their lyrics, and they have the occasional introspective song, but by and large the driving drums and fuzz just make you smile from ear to ear.

'Girl Of 1000 Dreams' is the one song on the album that hasn't really clicked for me yet. It is slightly grubbier and coarser than the rest of the album, and Kip tries out a more venomous singing style which I'm not sure I like. I can see why it's on there, and it's definitely not bad enough to be skippable or anything, but I can't say I'd recommend playing it to anyone to get them into the band - the melody doesn't really flow as well as most of the tunes on here, and the guitars seem to be missing something.

The penultimate track, 'Too Tough', sounds like a return to the Pains of old, with the introductory churning chords seemingly straight off their debut album. it reintroduces the 'Anne' of 'Anne with an E', this time with her seemingly stuck in a bad relationship. Again, it isn't one of the more memorable songs on the album, which definitely peaked a few tracks ago. The same is true of the closer 'Strange', which has all the raw ingredients of a great album closer, lyrics that sum up the album as a whole coupled with trebly, euphoric backing. As with the debut, the last track is the closest the band gets to actual shoegaze. Still, it feels a bit unsatisfying. But none of this is to detract from the sheer quality of the first 7 songs, and any of the last 3 would be shining lights on many other quality albums.

The band brought in Flood and Alan Moulder to produce, and it has definitely produced a more polished feel. This can often take away from something that sounded as raw as the debut album, but I think here it has just refocused their songs from dirty, fuzzy guitars to having Peggy Wang's keyboards and synths at the front of the mix. Which works very well. Despite this being my most anticipated album in a long time, I'd say it has exceeded my expectations, with lyrics that are a step up from anything they've done before and a theme that makes the album work as more than just a collection of individual songs. The worst you can say about it is that it tails off a bit towards the end, with the last 3 tracks not really up to the stellar standards of the first 7. Best of the year? It's only the 11th of March, I can't say. But if it isn't, then 2011 will have been a good year for music.