The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Belong

Whoa. I had previously dismissed the cheekily-named Pains Of Being Pure At Heart as an overly twee example of indie rock, but with their second album, Belong, they have not only dodged the "sophomore slump" but produced one of the year's finest records.

Produced by Flood and mixed by Alan Moulder, the dream team responsible for some of the 90's best albums (Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie, U2's Achtung Baby, Depeche Mode's Violator, and Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, just to name a few), it should come as no surprise that Belong has their fingerprints all over it. Not only is it produced by relics from the heyday of the so-called "Alternative Nation," but the record sounds of a time and place that puts it squarely during the era when Lollapalooza was a touring concern. It's got everything from that era: big fat guitars; angular bass work; breathy vocals; noisy feedback.

Opening with the stellar title track, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart know how to get right to your swoon centers, and they stay there throughout the entirety of the album. The first time I heard Belong, I said, "This sounds just like The Jesus & Mary Chain!" Only it's better than anything those mopesters every dreamed of recording, because Pains understands chiaroscuro far better than the Chain. For those of you without big vocabularies, chiaroscuro is a strong contrast between light and dark - it's an art term, and fully appropriate for a band whose ambitions so strongly straddle the line between art-rock and noise-pop. The band knows when to float along on a cloud, or roar through the speakers with a blast of shrieking noise, and they balance both tendencies with an equal helping of both that fully balances their sound.

I could go into individual tracks here, but I won't bother - the entire album is that good. Clocking in at 39:20, it doesn't overstay its welcome - a relief, because this kind of music could get a little same-y after a while. No, at 39:20, this album is perfect in size, shape, and composition, and could well be the best album of the year thus far.