The Pains of Being Pure at Heart The Garage, London 3/8/09
4/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Anyone attempting a game of indie bingo on this sweltering mid-summer’s evening in Highbury wouldn’t exactly have their work cut out claiming a full house. Chap wearing obscure Wedding Present tour t-shirt? Check. The Vaselines and Belle & Sebastian on the PA between bands? Check. Pallid, floppy-fringed lad procuring a sticking plaster from the bar, for Chrissakes? Check.
This might all feel suffocatingly twee if the four youthful Brooklyn C86ophiles known as The Pains of Being Pure At Heart didn’t have at their disposal such an incredible arsenal of delectably melodic knock-out pop punches. ‘Come Saturday’ is steeped in the heavenly abandon of Bandwagonesque-era Teenage Fanclub; ‘Young Adult Friction’, with its giddy recollections of library-based lust, contains some of the greatest uses of the handclap in recent musical memory. Their best song, ‘This Love Is F***ing Right’, sounds like Ride covering The Cure’s ‘Friday I’m in Love’, and like The La’s signature track ‘There She Goes’ it’s got both a chorus to die for and highly unsettling lyrical content (superficially a blissful ode to teen romance, it appears on closer inspection to be a paean to incestuous fumblings.)
At the close, keyboard player Peggy invites the crowd across the street to Rockfeedback’s erstwhile club night HQ The Buffalo Bar to hear the band DJ and reveal their “true influences.” Cynical observers might wryly suggest this means a night dominated by The Jesus & Mary Chain and early Primal Scream -although there can’t be too many sceptics left in The Garage tonight. TPOBPAH might be rooted in the past, but theses tunes are good enough to melt even the hardest of hearts.
Artists in this article: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment