Release Date: March 29, 2011
The goal of any artist is to express themselves or to elicit a response from an audience. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart did both with their latest album, Belong. The means by which they got the response, though, are very questionable.
Mopey, sweeping generalizations in lyrics and musicianship flooded with distortion are very common ways of gaining a following, e.g. the emo craze of the early- to mid-2000s.
However, those means are a far cry from being pure at heart (pun intended). If Kip Berman, the lead singer and guitarist of the group, truly believes what he sings to be pure, some serious self-reflection is needed.
Belong is a shallow, two-dimensional effort to be an emo band.
Disguised in mildly catchy hooks and guitar riffs that sound like they were borrowed from an 1980’s greatest hits album, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart constantly preach about hopelessness and the unmitigated sadness, but the songs are laced with major chord progressions, so the listener is almost tricked into thinking these feelings are OK. Subliminal advertising is never a good thing.
“Tell me again what the body’s for/I can’t feel it anymore/I want it to hurt like it did before.” Go to a therapist. Stop further alienating your already misguided audience into believing depression is fun and will make you a rock star. Music fans put on their headphones to escape from their own problems, not to take on someone else’s vague and superficial ones.
The weak-sauce guitars and drums do the wholly irresponsible lyrics only one favor. Oftentimes they drown out the airy-voiced singer entirely, but it comes at a cost.
The instruments are so heavily distorted it sounds like one giant emo wall of sound is cascading through the speakers.
It’d be a very different story if the guitars were actually playing something creative and not the same three power chords over and over again with different effects. The Cure and The Ramones don’t meld. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart didn’t realize this when recording the album.
“No matter what you pray/It’s never gonna take the pain away/And even if she’d stay/You know it’s wrong” Berman sings on the veiled downer “Heart in Your Heartbreak.” The lyrics would make more sense if “she’d” was replaced with “The Pains of Being Pure at Heart,” but that probably wouldn’t sound as catchy.
At its nucleus, Belong is bad high school poetry set to a bad high school “rock” band. This is a step back for indie rock. Many great contributions and advances in recent years have given the genre credibility and respect, and it’s a genuine shame to see this group of late-to-the-game emo misfits try to tear down all the work that’s been done.
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong Tracklist:
- Belong
- Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now
- Heart In Your Heartbreak
- The Body
- Anne With an E
- Even In Dreams
- My Terrible Friend
- Girl of 1,000 Dreams
- Too Tough
- Strange
