by Peter Quincy Ng
Self-titled EP The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
With a name like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
proposition the dvdrip you can just feel the emotions exploding from your heart. There’s only one thing that this Brooklyn, New York quartet (with a name as long as the title of your once-popular emo songs) can ring in – heartbreak.
Despite the pessimistic band name, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart oozes with heavenly nearly inaudible boy/girl vocals and giant clamors of ringing cymbals and noisy guitars. Like the name, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart implies, the band and its self-title debut reflects on all those lovely and not-so-lovely feelings you’ve had during high school. Those feelings you got from playing video games at your friend’s house and checking out that really cute girl in class. Although seeming almost lyrically naive, the topics covered in their self-titled release are anything but innocent. Mellow yet cheerful, it may take a few listens to pick out those lyrics to what seems like a rather streamlined and continuously flowing album. Occasionally light and from time-to-time heavy, this record is full of contrasts but it’s sure to inspire that 1980’s My Bloody Valentine sound back in the golden-age of shoegazing. The melancholy Stay Alive rants about holding back from going postal and “shooting up the sky”; while the more upbeat This Love is Fucking Right is about “getting it on” with your sister; and the staccato-like rhythm of Young Adult Friction laced with blissful boy/girl duet vocals is also about doing a just a little bit more than reading at your local library. Whether you’re sometimes right or sometimes wrong making these decisions sure isn’t easy? Life is hard, but listening to this record inspires those better moments of our once underappreciated adolescence.
Recommended Tracks: Everything with You, Stay Alive, Young Adult Friction
Similar Acts: Cocteau Twins, M83, My Bloody Valentine
Check out The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at: