Album Review
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart [Fortuna Pop] Sensitive Brooklynites deliver a salute to C86
Americans are mostly rubbish at English accents. Dick Van Dyke, Daphne in Frasier, Jack White (no one says “icky thump”). The same is true of American bands with a case of Anglophilia (hello Brandon Flowers and The Killers). The striking thing about this four-piece from Brooklyn is that they do it so well. Their debut album is so heavily indebted to the C86 bands, it could have passed unnoticed on that very cassette. Frontman Kip Berman sings like a whey-faced romantic, the melodies on Come Saturday and Everything With You are authetically twee and the guitars have that distinctive mid ’80s jangle, with a healthy dose of My Bloody Valentine droning fuzz for good measure. You could accuse them of slavish imitation and they’d have to hold their hands up. But they do it with such passion, it’s impossible not to be swept along. (7) CHRIS COTTINGHAM
- 12.02.09
