(photo: Annie Powers)

At the heart of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart is an unapologetic love of fuzzy guitars and beautiful girl-boy vocals straight out of the 1990s.  I could list the countless sound-alikes but that almost trivializes the band, reducing them to the common denominator of their musical influences.  You see, as much as The Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart’s sound comes directly from this particular era of dreamy, wall-of-sound pop, their 2009 version exists in a different place and time, and deserves to be  looked at in terms of their contemporaries.

Having said that, The Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart is an album that deserves your attention and admiration for all the things it is not:  a) it is not wildly experimental and built on ’sound collages’; b) it is not the product of a troop of bearded hippie-wannabes who are ‘pleasantly surprised’ by their sudden rush of fame; c)  it is not self-absorbed and full of itself; d) it is not boring, tedious, plain, and dull.  It is a very straightforward album that is a real treat to listen to from beginning to end.  “Stay Alive” has a great jangly guitar riff that gets a little dirty and rough in the chorus but never loses the melody and feel of a great lost Primitives song (that’s a good comparison).  There really isn’t a clunker in the bunch here, which is an accomplishment in and of itself because too often, a band with this much attention and anticipation placed on them before releasing a debut full-length tend to get caught up in the hype and rush a product out that is below par.  TPOBPAH are in no rush whatsoever, but still, at under 40 minutes the album is over far too son.  Still, that’s 10 shimmering shoegaze songs (please check out “Gentle Sons”–it’s a classic) for your listening pleasure, and I certainly do mean pleasure.  The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart is certainly a contender for 2009’s best debut album, and your new favourite record.

MP3: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart “Everything With You”
Video: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart “Everything With You”
Myspace: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart