Passion Pit - Cargo, London - 23/02/09
3/5
This is a familiar story, perhaps the dominant one of our age. From darlings of the blogosphere to wider hipster cache to major label by way of indie imprint kudos (Frenchkiss) in no time at all, right now Passion Pit are hotter than the sun. Almost as hot as the overcrowded, undersized room they're squeezed into tonight. As a buzz band, it's a common trajectory, but on record at least the attention is partially warranted.
So, let's first consider the context. The six track Chunk of Change EP that first surfaced in the second half of last year spawned yet another Hype Machine heavyweight. The band's name spilled across cyberspace like Outbreak, driven by their effective and affecting amalgamation of pretty much the entire last ten years of Internet royalty - equal parts Black Kids, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Postal Service and on their best moment to date 'Sleepyhead', a less outré Animal Collective.
And if good songs are no longer enough, Passion Pit came charged with their own neat back-story, the songs reputedly written by main man Michael Angelakos in his bedroom as a Valentine love letter to a girlfriend. A little sappy for sure, but cute as hell and coupled with the music itself, it's not hard to see why they're experiencing the attention their moniker hints at.
Steered by this hype, Passion Pit find themselves in London as part of a joint tour of the UK (with the far less endearing Bear Hands and Hockey), freshly signed to Columbia and here greeted by many sullen fashionista faces. The first challenge of course is converting these highly personalised and parochial songs into a live setting. It's a pressured expectation, especially for such a young band (in terms of their career, if not their actual ages) whose songs until now have only existed in a way disconnected from the band. It's been a rapid ascent and you'd be forgiven for thinking they were in need of paying some dues.
As they bound on stage at Cargo, there's no sign of nerves tonight, confidently announcing themselves as "Passion Pit from Cambridge, Massachusetts". With their hirsute locks and nerdy eyewear, they could quite easily belong to these Shoreditch streets, sans the clichéd dead eyed Nathan Barley apathy. Because if nothing else, they're animated and excitable, despite Angelakos sat at a keyboard centre stage for the most part. They open the set with what they introduce as a new song and it seems an odd move, appearing to lack the subtlety of their earlier work. It's clear that the record to live transition may not be entirely seamless and perhaps understandable given the expansion from bedroom onanism to multifaceted bloghouse five-piece.
As more familiar songs are aired, it's a suspicion that sadly gains more credence. Clearly Passion Pit live are not quite the same formidable and engaging prospect as on record. Granted, there's a muscular tautness to the rhythm section, but the multilayered allure of tracks like 'Sleepyhead' and 'Smile On Me' lose their emotional impact in the transformation.
To their credit, Passion Pit are a party band. They're here to have fun, even if, rather predictably, no one in the too-cool-for-school crowd acknowledges this. They're competent too and although the vocals are distinctly lacking in the lower regsiters, when Angelakos shrieks with that almost hysterical histrionic whine, they've an edge found lacking in some of their more slick contemporaries.
But as diverting as the experience is, those who are here having fallen for the aforementioned debut EP would be forgiven for being a tad disappointed. Where on that record there's a compelling emotional intensity, it's replaced here with a joie de vivre that's hard to begrudge, but even more difficult to fall wholly in love with. They're a fleeting pleasure, much in the common with the skin flick from which they borrow their name, but nowhere near as seamy. Maybe they're determined to enjoy what they realise is capricious industry attention and the opportunities this can initially afford them, and admittedly it is early days for a band working out just how to become a live act. But until they master the evolution, they remain another name in the ever-growing line of musical white elephants.
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