The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong (Album)

I don’t think I’m being too harsh on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart when I say that when they released their first album two years ago, they weren’t exactly weighed down by the burden of an expectant public. Flash forward to 2011, though, and the gradual but significant impact of the debut means that Belong represents one of the most significant indie releases of the early part of the year. It’s testament to both the simple endearing quality of the aforementioned debut, as well as the ever increasing power of blog-trotters the world over, that the band find themselves in such a position, but it also means that, for the first time, there’s a pressure on them to produce the goods.

Things start promisingly with the album’s title track, a pleasingly meaty chunk of guitar distortion, emerging more from the My Bloody Valentine extreme of the band’s oeuvre than the Field Mice one, which would appear to suggest that a couple of years of heavy touring have galvanised their sound. As it turns out, this proves to be a bit of a red herring because a few seconds into second song ‘Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now’, the fog clears and the band revert to chiming, melodic type, remaining in that mode for the bulk of the rest of the record. Nobody should be particularly surprised by this, because even at this early stage in their career, The Pains have always been the sort of band who gave the impression of being happily ensconced in their C86-shaped niche. This, by the way, is no criticism, either. As it happens, I absolutely loved The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, but let’s not beat about the bush: if you found that record too derivative, too twee or too cloying, then Belong certainly won’t change your perception of the band

As you would expect, then, the things that Belong does well are exactly the same as those that The Pains of Being Pure at Heart did well. It’s liberally strewn with sharp pop hooks which, as before, rely heavily on the interplay between the shoegaze-with-a-small-s guitars and Kip Berman’s breathy vocals. The weariness in Berman’s voice again provides an interesting counterpoint to the youthful exuberance of the musical backing, and ‘My Terrible Friend’ is probably the most effective example of this that the band have yet produced. Other particularly satisfying highlights of the record include the aforementioned title track, and the beautifully direct, twinkling pop of ‘The Body’ and ‘Girl of 1000 Dreams’.

Belong, unquestionably, find its mark more often than it misses it, and on those occasions, the songs are every bit as strong as those on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. It’s all the more frustrating, then, that there are a couple of moments on the record which make it feel like hard work, namely the disappointingly dreary ‘Anne with an E’, and closing song ‘Strange’, which sees the band aim for a big finale without even getting close to the sort of grandeur they seem to think they’re attaining. It’s a shame that the album ends on such an underwhelming note, because there’s a danger that the listener will be left with the false impression that Belong is a disappointing record, which it really is not. It might be a stretch to say that it surpasses what went before it, but given the what the band where up against, there’s aboslutely no shame in that at all. All things considered, The Pains have quite neatly circumnavigated their unenviable task, adding some real gems to their back catalogue in the process.