Album Review: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Belong

If, for some odd reason, you were to skip the first eight tracks on Belong and only listen to the last two songs on The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart’s sophomore album, you could be forgiven for assuming not much has changed since the Brooklyn band’s uber-nostalgic 2009 debut LP landed to widespread acclaim; if, like us, you had deemed that debut your sixth favourite record of the year at the time, then you’ll likely see very little wrong with the creeping shoegaze of penultimate track ‘Too Tough’ or the touching indie strains of closer ‘Strange’ marking a comforting return to familiar territory. However, if, like us, you’re a stickler for tradition and start Belong from side one, track one, then you may well be asking yourself the same question that's been vexing the Ragged Words office for the past month: Where’s all the damned feedback gone?

The answer is that that the uncharacteristically clean sound that dominates this second outing is owed in large part to the New Yorkers' decision to jump a decade and ditch '80s indie for '90s alt-rock. It must be said that this transition – aided by heavyweight producers Alan Moulder and Flood (U2, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails) – begins pretty smoothly with heavyish opener 'Belong' easing debut-album devotees into ‘Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now’, and 'Heart in Your Heartbreak's introduction to the brighter and breezier sound of TPOBPAH Mark 2; boasting a killer riff and chorus apiece, they round off a terrific opening hat-trick. And yet, in the space of just one track, Belong goes from sounding like a sturdy imitation of Teenage Fanclub at their best to a substandard Lightning Seeds retread. 'The Body' marks the first moment when Peggy Wang's keyboards really start to overwhelm proceedings and, in this case, contribute towards a pretty disappointing four minutes' work – it's hardly too strong a claim to make that, had Ian Broudie penned it, he'd most likely be too embarrassed to hand it to Baddiel & Skinner as a soundtrack to England's Euro 2012 group-stage exit. The track doesn't so much send the album south as kick off a horribly muddled middle-section, during which ‘Anne with An E’ plods along drearily, 'Even In Dreams' goes a bit OTT on the epic side of things and 'My Terrible Friend' actually manages to get the whole '90s widescreen synthpop thing bang on.

For a band that have already succeeded in capturing the particular sound of one decade so expertly, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart sure have struggled with the next one here. The inconsistencies littered throughout these ten tracks make several of Belong's undoubted highlights just plain unenjoyable to listen to in sequence – something that stands in marked contrast to a debut this writer still returns to more often than most of '09's best. It just makes you wonder what would have been so wrong with going for more of the same.