Annie Powers
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are here and indie pop matters again
By Bryan Reed
Published: January 30th, 2009 | 7:50am
The very notion of indie pop in 2009 seems almost quaint. It’s often so feigned and precious and best handled in small doses like that guy at the party who’s a little too nice, and probably wearing a cardigan. People aren’t that happy all of the time, and the best bands get it. Beat Happening sure as hell got it. Belle and Sebastian get it. And as anybody who hears their Slumberland Records debut will soon find out, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart get it.
Behind their sonic mass — a balance of twee-pop melodies and shoegaze density, something like Talulah Gosh backed by Neil Halstead — the Pains of Being Pure at Heart write songs about conflicted, damaged characters. Pop hooks get mangled by guitar noise as the songs’ narratives go deeper and darker. “The best music hopefully spurs thought and spurs you to reconsider things and not just take it at face value,” says frontman Kip Berman. It’s all about juxtaposition, pairing a pretty pop song with a not-so-attractive subject, jangle and squall, pain and purity. “It’s nice when there’s multiple layers to music,” Berman adds. “It gives songs a little more heft or impact.”
So does honesty, another trait laced through the Pains’ songs. “It’s all very rooted in who we are as people,” Berman says. “For better or worse, it’s who we are.” Even as the songs delve into heady and potentially painful subject matter — including broken hearts and drug addiction, alienation, teenage death, and sexual confusion — Berman insists there’s a basis in reality. “You can’t really be unmasked if you’re unmasking yourself.”
The directness in Berman's lyrics makes the songs immediate and almost tangible in their emotional quality. It’d be pretty difficult to confuse the meaning of a line like, “A teenager in love with Christ and heroin.” And even when he’s not so blunt, the lyrical bent in a Pains song is narrative and expository. So, excluding the sonic qualities, it’s songwriting qualities that make the Pains’ indie pop not just palatable, but vital. The band’s haze of suspended keyboard chords and chiming guitar fuzz doesn’t hurt; nor does the sweet, calm tone of Berman’s vocals. But that’s all for naught without songs worth getting acquainted with and empathetic characters who reveal more of themselves in each successive verse.
“The term ‘literate’ is not really one I’d want to use because I feel like most bands know how to read and write,” Berman says. Maybe thoughtful is more adept? He’s not a storyteller in the same photorealistic manner as a John Darnielle, or in the verbose style of a Colin Meloy, but Berman’s words are chosen with similar care, revealing details at the right moment or hiding them just long enough to make the big reveal feel urgent.
Berman cites the confessional songwriting bent of hardcore as an influence, but mostly it’s just about being honest with yourself. “We feel very comfortable being the uncomfortable people we are,” he says. And there’s a freedom in not hiding. Berman suggests that maybe being up-front isn’t as safe as relying on vague images to evoke emotion, but, he asserts, “our ambition isn’t simply to non-offend our way to people’s hearts.”
Certainly all the ingredients for a promising debut are to be found in the Pains’ self-titled long-player. And the response has been duly positive. Early press has been favorable, but perhaps the biggest votes of confidence came during the band’s recent U.K. tour, which found the Pains touring the stomping grounds of their idols. “If music is our religion, it was our pilgrimage, or like our hajj to go to England where all these pop bands are from,” Berman says. “It was almost like teenagers meeting the Jonas Brothers or something.”
And not only did Berman and his bandmates meet their idols, but those influential musicians were among the audiences on the tour. Modestly, Berman opines, “If all these people in bands we like are coming to our shows and liking it, it must mean we don’t suck that much.”
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For more information about the Pains of Being at Heart, check out their MySpace.
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