When listening to an album for the first time, people often find it helpful to ignore the lyrics to better get a feel for the album’s musical merit. However, in the case of Belong, the sophomore release from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, this proves an impossible task—the trite, clichéd lyrics mar the album from its very start.
The album’s opener, “Belong,” sets the tone for the rest of the tracks, complete with uninspired lyrics that sound like they come straight from the pages of a dramatic high-schooler’s diary. Although it begins hopefully with a pop-friendly guitar introduction, it takes a turn for the worse soon thereafter, with scratchily mixed overtones and the murmurs of lead singer Kip Berman’s repetitive and dull chorus of “we don’t belong, we don’t belong.”
But while the bad lyricism does not stop there, the mediocre musicality thankfully does. As its title suggests, “Heart in the Heartbreak” also carries some irritatingly emo, lovesick lyrics, but here they are accompanied by a catchy indie-pop beat, which persists in many of the later tracks.
In “My Terrible Friend,” for instance, keyboardist Peggy Wang delightfully complements Christoph Hochheim’s dominant guitar, and together the two produce an animated, delightful melody. This theme of enjoyable indie melodies, albeit somewhat blighted by Berman’s subpar voice and lyrics, persists throughout the album.
Beyond the mushy lyrics and the unfortunate song titles (“Girl of 1,000 Dreams,” really?), the seemingly higher production quality of the album also reflects to the band’s unsuccessful attempt to transition from underground to mainstream. While the band’s collaboration with renowned producer Flood, whose canon includes work with Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins, and mix master Alan Moulder creates a cleaner sound, this refinement hasn’t necessarily lent itself to a more mature sound, just one that has benefited from more advanced technology. Consequently, it seems that with this new release, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have lost some of their originality and the rough, raw quality of their self-produced, eponymous first release.
By the end of unremarkable album closer “Strange,” the listener is left with an overall impression that is just that—unremarkable. Belong falls into some lyrical ruts and hits some pretty successful musical highs, but the band is definitely fortunate for the cred they built up with their last release—otherwise, those overly saccharine lyrics just might have been their downfall.
Voice’s Choices: “My Terrible Friend”
mary…get the dirt out of your ears…and the stick out of your behind…maybe you could try and just have a good time with this album instead of trying to find whatever you think is wrong with it …..there’s a bunch of us going to the pains party…we’ll be the one’s be dancing and having fun….what are you gonna do–stay home and be miserable?