The first lyric on The Pains of Being Pure At Heart's new record, Belong, is misleading: they didn't seem to question themselves on “what to do." If I'm wrong, and they did ask themselves existential questions about their record-making and what trajectory to take it in, then they certainly didn't come come to the conclusion that “nothing new” is the answer. Belong makes their previous records look small in comparison with its stadium-sized sound and penchant for making superlatively diabetic lyrical turns. The progression is so natural that, unlike their other 2000s “lo-fi” colleagues, Pains don't seem like they are doing the “intelligent thing” by proclaiming that genre's particularly limiting mannerisms and thought processes (i.e. sounding like complete shit and claiming it gives you the elusive “Sheen of Authenticity," when really the only luster you're getting on record is one more akin to the scent and texture of rotting milk left out overnight by your girlfriend, who decided that it'd make more sense to skip the trip out to the grocery store and just starve in bed while watching Lost, a pastime that you, with your Pains-like predilections, readily agreed to) as the way to move forward.
That being said, their debut album and its follow up EP, Higher Than the Stars, are not “lo-fi” at all. Instead, they are extremely immediate, well-recorded releases, that, given the fact that they write songs with lyrics and not just high, garage-y harmonies, attempts at leather-jacket cool, and disgusting sub-Black Lips personae, drove their teenage manifestos home with the kind of emotional resonance I haven't heard from a guitar pop band in eons. This same kind of dynamic is at work with Belong, albeit with more confidence and professionalism. The vocals are louder, the keyboards are more expensive, (or at least sound more expensive, such as the ARP on “Heart in Your Heartbreak," an apparatus that was, at least to me, conspicuously missing from their first recordings) and the songwriting is less silly and leans more towards the socially apocalyptic than the incestuous/depressing. “Even in Dreams” is a perfect example of this elevated level of desperation on the part of the speakers, with its golden refrain of “even in dreams, I could not betray you.”
The band also seems much more confident instrumentally here than on either of their prior releases. The drumming is busier while simultaneously very tight and very distinct in the way it ebbs and flows with Kip Berman's vocals and the impressive, lyrical bass playing of Alex Nadius. In a band that seems sincere to the point of nausea, it seems to me that his fear of Flood, which amounted to the idea that the large-and-in-charge celebrity producer would make fun of his bass playing, is somewhat of a ploy to make the band appear more like musically bankrupt indie kids who have no idea what they're doing, but seem to make it work than like the accomplished musicians they are, or at least sound like. If one were to take a less cynical view of it, he is probably just very humble, polite, and not a self-aggrandizing asshole. All of this aside, the rhythm section makes the songs more boisterous and enjoyable than they probably should be, and act as the driving force behind all the performances. Kurt Feldman is a very talented drummer, and his tendency to open the hi-hats in stages rather than just go from quiet-loud like most of the more bombastic (i.e. simple-minded and decidedly shit) drummers in 2011 guitar-pop bands provides an added dynamic to the songs that makes the choruses hit much harder. Not that they need to hit much harder, as the pedal-stomping distortion, although not original in any sense of the word, is positively handjob-like on anthems like “Heaven's Gonna Happen Now." This is a record that should fill stadiums and trigger millions of cover versions by hopeless kids with Squire guitars who are impressed more by technical prowess than by songwriting, but it probably won't. Oh well.
The record as a whole is very effective, with its charms summed up as equal parts fist-pumping glory and tissue box-purging heartbreak. I'd be loath to criticize the superior songwriting, top-class musicianship, or witty teenage lyrical conceits that Pains have perfected in any way, since they pull everything off almost perfectly. Like most great records, the cover seems to play directly into the music itself: the picture of an artfully-rendered young male face navel-gazing on the front cover looks like the perfect visual manifestation of the music's legitimate, but ultimately fabricated sadness. What makes Pains stand out from other po-faced “please let me be cool” (i.e. The Beets, wankers) 2000s guitar-pop bands is their sense of humor and ability to inject even their saddest laments of betrayal in love with a much-needed sense of buoyancy. The band effectively gets into a life raft and rides a giant sea of under-18's (or nostalgic Urban Outfitters employees/shoppers) tears to indie pop stardom. Good for them.
[The Pains of Being Pure At Heart Website]
[Buy Belong from Slumberland Records]
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