Review Summary: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart "Belong" in your heart.
We will always reflect upon our childhood as some of the greater times. When we were small everything was marvelous. There were no worries about a failing economy, international terrorism, or whether we would amount to anything in life. Our joy was simple; the weight of the world was nothing. The world, as massive and mysterious it was, didn’t belittle us in the slightest. Our time was spent running through the summer sunshine, breathing in all the life that surrounded us. When it rained, we still went out and we got muddy. Everything was about squeezing in as much fun as we could before our parents ordered us to come in for dinner. Inevitably we are drawn to the innocence of our youth; our gaze is captivated by the notion that we used to not have a care in the world. If only we could capture the spirit of our childhood and never let go.
Get ready to hold on tight because The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have channeled the very essence of being young. Their album,
Belong, is just as sugary and romantic as our view of the past. What makes
Belong especially appealing is its simplicity; everything has this hazy, slow fuzzy feel to it. The guitars strum out heavily distorted power chords while synthesizers mosey along throughout. You won’t be won over by any technical prowess or ability on the album; rather you will be sucked into its atmospheric tendencies.
Belong clearly draws much influence from the shoegaze sounds mastered by
My Bloody Valentine. The Pains do an excellent job of recreating those noise pop sounds but they aren’t identical.
My Bloody Valentine’s sounds are much more heavy and detached whereas The Pains’ sounds are much more light and polished.
Make no mistake though, this is very noisy pop. The Pains craft a solid wall of sound on
Belong, the difference being that it's composed of sweet memories rather than those of regret and detachment.
Belong is also loaded to the brim with hooks. And yet, no matter how cliché they seem, they still remain genuine. These sweet vocals are barely above a whisper, and when paired with the sonic environment, they become very intimate. The lead singer, Kip Berman, reminisces about his past experiences on the track
“The Body” by saying
”Remind me again what the body is for, because I can’t feel it anymore”. Indeed, in a sense we are all numb to the world now. We grind away at life, no longer experiencing the simple joys we did as children. Most of the lyrics deal with past events; with the better times. Though very naïve, Kip Berman charms us with his child-like approach and inability to comprehend the changes involved with maturing.
Ultimately,
Belong is a relic of the past. It is the imagination of children everywhere, drawn out into a lush sonic landscape. We are surrounded by it, cradled into the comfortable complacency of our younger days. It’s warm and fuzzy, sweet and charming. The Pains have captured the very essence of being young. They have taken the unscathed innocence of our childhood and recreated it right before our eyes. The wall of sound they erect surrounds the garden of our virgin ideas; allowing us to roam free once again.
Belong removes the weight of the world from our tired and worn shoulders. As put by Mr. Berman in the track
”Strange”,
”When everyone was doing drugs, we were doing love”. This album is proof that our youthful passion still lives on, deep inside our beating hearts. We don’t need drugs to remove ourselves from all our worries; we need only to reflect within.
