Here in the year 2009, we all lead such frantic lives. We simply can’t take everything in, so sometimes certain things need helpful little aide memoirs attaching to them. Like when you introduce two people: ‘This is Dave. He’s a policeman’.
We’re doing it increasingly with records too. Look at one of last year’s biggest word-of-blog successes, Bon Iver. How many reviews of For Emma, Forever Ago did you read that didn’t mention it being recorded in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere? And the same goes for our present subject, Passion Pit. Their excellent debut EP Chunk of Change, as we all know by now, was originally recorded as a Valentine’s gift for Michael Angelakos’ girlfriend.
Such codas can on occasion be beneficial to a record, enhancing it’s recognisability or even it’s enjoyability. But what of such an album’s follow-up? Without a helpful cover story, the danger is that it can be lost in the ultra-saturated and fickle music market. Well, the solution for a band is perfectly simple: Make the music speak for itself.
That was the challenge facing Passion Pit with the release of first album Manners. And it was a challenge to which, by and large, they have risen to admirably. They have given us an album which screams ‘POP’ louder and clearer with every soaring chorus and every bouncing synth. Though much-maligned, and often taken for granted, well-executed pop music is one of the great pleasures of the world.
When at its best, Manners is euphoric. ‘Little Secrets’ is a perfect illustration of this. It’s dense electro textures underpin a child chorus intoning the joyous ‘Higher and higher and higher’ refrain. The ‘Feel it rain’ breakdown at the climax of ‘Folds in Your Hands’ has the same effect. These are just two of the countless moments on the album which can make you feel momentarily like you don’t have a care in the world.
Very occasionally, Manners throws up hints that Passion Pit can do more than just make you want to dance. ‘Swimming in the Flood’, and ‘Seaweed Song’ have, if you’ll pardon the unintended aquatic pun, greater depth than much of the rest of the album. The former shows a slightly darker, more longing side, while the latter is the mini electro epic with which Manners reaches an increasingly frenzied conclusion.
While the album isn’t exactly formulaic, it’s difficult to shake the nagging feeling that it a little more variation from the histrionics would have made it a more rewarding listen. Because that is its one major fault, the fact that Angelakos’ vocals only really have one mode: Hysterical. Occasionally his fervour is fitting, like on the opening lines of ‘Sleepyhead’: ‘And you said / It was like fire around the brim’. But more often, his delivery can grate and make a very accessible album fairly heavy going.
So Manners is a flawed, but likeable album. It is like an excitable puppy, jumping around and yapping at you to notice it. But it is also capable of frequently bringing you great enjoyment. None of the album’s foibles are deal-breakers, and can easily be ironed out for Album Two. I’m not sure I’ll still be regularly listening to it in a year’s time, but I can see myself moving my feet to a number of its tracks for many years to come.
