The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong (2011)

The Pains of being Pure at Heart was one of those new indie bands at the end of the naughties that I got quite excited about. They basically didn't invent anything new in music, but they did what they did extremely well. I feel like today it's completely impossible to create anything unique and new in music, because pretty much everything has already been done. This has created an era that consists of just different types of retro. There is no shared youth culture and shared experience anymore, because all the music is easily available and each musical genre has their own fans, but people outside of that bubble usually know very little about that genre. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is channeling early 90's shoegazing sounds and combines them with catchy and danceable indie pop that has echoes of 80's mainstream pop.



I liked the debut album of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart a lot. It was ambitious, but still it wasn't too polished and there was a certain edge to that album. Being goes a bit too far in my opinion in being too clean and calculated. This was also visible on their gig at a Helsinki-based Flow festival where I saw them live after this album. There wasn't enough visible joy in their playing and I feel like this kind of music would really require them to show how much they enjoy being there on stage to make a better impression.

Despite of all I said about the sounds and enthusiasm, this album is filled with excellent pop songs with catchy melodies and impressive guitar walls. The album sounds quite timeless because they use so many influences from past decades. If I just heard this on the radio and didn't know what it was, I could easily confuse it with some late 80's or early 90's bands.

The album starts with pounding drums and chiming guitars that remind me of the first album by Stone Roses mixed with a bit of My Bloody Valentine in the title track Belong. Heaven's Gonna Happen Now sounds like some of the catchiest hit songs by The Smiths, although the sounds are more modern than that. Heart in Your Heartbreak is an instant hit song. Already the verse is quite catchy, but then there's a great build up to the chorus that make you dance wildly. The guitar riffs after the chorus are quite amazing. The Body reminds me of early 90's shoegazing bands such as Ride. There's similar kind of tempo and the sounds are messy in the same way. Even In Dreams is the most obvious hit song on the album. It has the beat of a 80's rock hit and the guitars of a 90's pop rock hit. The chorus is amazingly built to sound larger than life. My Terrible Friend is a true indie pop hit song that would get the cool people on the dance floor in an indie disco. Girl of 1,000 Dreams sounds almost like late 90's college rock or skate punk song. The ending song Strange is more typical song of the late naughties and I get similar kinds of vibes of that song as I get from Blonde Redhead's albums.

There's a great music video for Heart in Your Heartbreak. This video makes it clear that actually the band itself is a collection of all the retro influences that I can hear in their music. The outfits that these  New York hipsters are wearing have all the retro elements of the 80's and 90's. In the music video, the band starts playing the song in a music shop and they turn it into a disco.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is a great example of a band that isn't afraid of being completely retro. They've just picked all of their favourite elements of the music history and combined those into their own sound. This is how music works in an era when everything has already been done.

Listen to the album on Spotify.