The Pains of Being Pure at Heart Produce Pure Pop

If their breathtaking second LP, “Belong,” is any indication, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are growing up rapidly. In 2009, the young band seared their image onto hipster consciousness with their self-titled debut, a record that sounded as classic as its own cover art looked. The album was a perfect cut of early 90’s indie—the band’s sound inspired by the twee fuzz of bands like Black Tambourine, and hearkening back to the darker, dreamy haze of shoe-gaze monolith My Bloody Valentine. On their new album, The Pains fulfill all the promise of their past work and reveal an inspired and expanded dimension in their sound and song-writing capacity.

The band’s rapid evolution is best suggested by the insistently slinky and propulsive single, “Heart In Your Heartbreak.” Lacking their typical distortion, the song sounds organic as well as expressive, and contains a sweet and lilting chorus that deceptively adorns the song’s theme of utterly crushing and irreversible heartache: “Still your friends don’t understand / That the world could end and it’d feel no worse than this.” The interplay between the dynamic instrumentals and compelling lyrics reveals a more carefully crafted sound than their last album.

The sharpness and subtlety in “Heartbreak” point to a poeticism that courses through the “Belong.” Lead singer Kip Berman’s airy voice is less masked by the guitars, and his lyrics are populated with compellingly warm characters, locations, and images. Similar to “Devotion” by Beach House, “Belong” explores the single word concept of its title. Through a core theme of belonging and alienation, the songs here also reach conceptually for reconciliation, dedication and devotion—the forms of love and solidarity shared by the downtrodden.

The title-track “Belong” opens the album and sets this agenda powerfully, with Berman delivering the embittered lines: “I know / It’s wrong / But we / Just don’t belong.” Musically, the song is a revelation for The Pains. With its bombastically brooding guitar riffs and anthemic scope, the song plays like a manifesto for all the lost and weird. The track’s placement is even a little jarring, as it practically causes the album to climax on the first track. Yet that role is reserved for the gorgeous height of “Even In Dreams,” an even more resonant song that contains a statement of devastatingly pure and simple commitment: “Even in dreams, I could not betray you.”

Besides a handful of songs, “Belong” largely sheds the gauzy distortion of the band’s former works. Though the heavy crunch of the first ten of seconds of “Belong” might suggest The Smashing Pumpkins as an influence, the conjecture is partially misleading. The sound is like The Pumpkins, but largely more along the lines of “1979” and “Tonight, Tonight.” This time around the guitars shimmer instead of crackle, and the flourishes of keyboard player Peggy Wang have become a much more prominent backbone. In fact, the ebullient disco-synth and fat snare drum on songs like “The Body” and “My Terrible Friend”, seem to have more in common with other older bands such as Pulp, New Order, or even the Cure.

Though thematically coherent and compelling, the album stagnates a bit towards the end. The band’s debut flowed perfectly with Spartan editing and a careful pace. Where that record staved off redundancy by introducing some tempo changes in its last songs, “Belong” falters slightly with the inclusion of some weaker and uninspired cuts. For example, the song “Girl of 1,000 Dreams” begins promisingly with vengeful distortion and vicious toms otherwise absent on the rest of the album. Yet the syrupy verses that follow are awkward, and they seem like the work of a different band. The song isn’t exactly a failed attempt, nor is it unpleasant, but it does feel out of place at the end of the album.

Ultimately, though, the second half is redeemed on the gorgeous rush of the band’s tremendous final song, “Dreams.” The instruments play the album out, receding slowly in volume. Commencing with an unaccompanied dance drumbeat and moving into an iridescent stream of guitar, the song fades slowly, as if begging for the album to be played again.

Perhaps it makes sense that The Pains of Being Pure At Heart should be so constantly mentioned in the same breath as so many classic post-punk bands of decades past. After listening to “Belong,” it is hard to conceive of a better heir to these classic artists. But The Pains push forward too, having created an incredible and exciting record that will move them past mere genre recognitions. “Belong” is beautiful and even touching—a sonic and emotional kaleidoscope of loves lost and loves realized.