The Pains of Being Pure At Heart @ Black Cat
When Mehan Jayasuriya (and a few others of us from the music staff) saw Passion Pit at the Black Cat last week, he got to see a scenario when a new band can’t quite rise to the level of its own hype. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart were up against similar, if slightly less daunting odds. Much like Passion Pit, they have only been together for about two years and only have a handful of songs but have received widespread blogger approval, including big ups from that music reviewing monolith based out of Chicago. Granted, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart only had to rise to the task of impressing a sold-out Backstage crowd, and after having toured with indie rock mainstays The Wedding Present, their exuberance seemed a little more polished.
One thing that did not work to their advantage was having to follow The Depreciation Guild. The New York trio appear to have the same respect that the headliners do for My Bloody Valentine but express it differently. Whereas The Pains of Being Pure at Heart seem to have a twee sensibility and cooing harmonies atop the fuzzy guitar, The Depreciation Guild veers more towards the woozy experimental end of the spectrum, recalling M83 and putting in the occasional dancey synth loop. They also provided a more enveloping visual show, projecting bright squares of varying sizes and colors behind them. Apparently they're giving away their current album In Her Gentle Jaws for free on their website. That web site likely got a couple dozen hits after this performance.
Perhaps that’s why the headliners showed up onstage twenty minutes late? One crowd member quipped that they were "pure at heart, but not punctual." Hard to say but the second that singer/guitarist Kip Berman opened his mouth to thank us for being there with the purest sincerity, the audience all sort of had an “aww” moment. The band just seemed too adorable for anyone to stay mad.
They had the crowd bopping from the start, as they scrolled through the best songs on their self-titled debut. Berman made sure to thank Velocity Girl's Archie Moore for the production on their album, saying that if it sounds any good, it's due to Moore. He also thanked Depreciation Guild's Kurt Feldman who did double duty as drummer for the headliner. Berman humbly referred to Feldman as "the talented one." It was as if he understood that they might not live up to the crowd's expectations but felt grateful to be given the opportunity to try. It seemed to work as the audience overwhelmingly cheered them back on for an encore.