PRESS / LYRICS
Press Contact (US)
daniel@forcefieldpr.com
BIO:
Alex - Bass / Kip - Guitar + Vocals / Kurt - Drums / Peggy - Keyboard + Vocals
Imagine if Stephen Pastel actually threw Aggi off the bridge and married Black Tambourine’s Pam Berry and had three four babies that formed a pop band.
Meet The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, a New York four-piece who plays sweet & noisy POP with boy/girl vocals, blissful melodies and blistering drums.
Here are some bands The Pains of Being Pure at Heart really like (but maybe don’t sound quite like): The Pastels, The Exploding Hearts, Black Tambourine/Velocity Girl, The Vaselines, The Ramones, Teenage Fanclub, My Bloody Valentine, Nirvana, Rocketship, Dear Nora.
Here are our friends bands that we think you’ll like: Zaza, caUSE co-MOTION! The Crystal Stilts, The Depreciation Guild, Pants Yell!, The Manhattan Love Suicides, Knight School, Ringo Deathstarr, My Teenage Stride, Titus Andronicus, A Sunny Day in Glasgow, The Besties, The Beets.
Some Reviews:
New York Times
On its excellent self-titled debut album there’s a mild hauteur drawn from new wave, a thickness derived from shoegaze-pop and a pulse passed down from dance-punk. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart might paint within the lines, but they do so with panache… Warm on the outside, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart seethe with refreshingly mordant wit.”Pitchfork - Best New Music
Songs that will appeal beyond the confines of subcultures: Anyone with a weakness for trebly, melancholy pop music will find a lot to like about this record.
Chicago Reader
“Their recent Slumberland debut is nearly flawless: rife with urgency and big hooks that keen and carom through epic guitar fuzz.”NME
it’s much more than the sum of its parts and too effortlessly effervescent to be studied. Pure indie-pop to hold close to your heart.Drowned in Sound
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have crafted an impeccable debut way beyond their years, and any misconceptions about them being mere revivalists will surely be diminished instantaneously upon hearing this most accomplished of long playersMy infallible love for The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart is no secret at all. I think I summed it up to the best of my cheesy abilities in the fanzine included with their Atomic Beat split 7″ earlier this year. What they’re doing is beautiful and perfect and wonderfully genuine AND not to mention totally fucking consistent! Have they got a bad song? Nope. And they probably never will as long as they keep moving in the direction they’re headed in. Their new single “Everything With You” is the perfect noisy pop song. Kip and Peggy’s vocal harmonies sound gorgeous floating above the ringing guitar wash and OH HEY SOLO! “Everything With You” is the first single from their previously mentioned debut LP and will be out on the mighty Slumberland Records (US) and Fortuna POP (UK) in the fall. BUT! You can go hear it right now streaming on the Pobpah MySpace and bask in it’s life-affirming fantasticness! God I love pop songs.
“This is an important record for these times, a game changer”
Losing Today - “Everything With You”
“Everything With You” is your pure unadulterated fix of dogs bollocks bright eyed and cute with it radiant pop the kind that makes you tingle from the inside out, lovingly sugar dipped in sheens of pulse racing effervescence and to these ears sounding not so dissimilar to the kind of stuff mined for your discerning delight by the likes of imprints such as Bus Stop, Summershine and HOL / MBV era Creation while blissfully gliding about your senses like some sun soaked honey combed slice of heart string tweaking bliss pop happily being crafted by a three way collaboration between the Pastels, Velvet Crush and early career Teenage Fanclub. Does it for us…buy on sight.”Contact Music - “Come Saturday” 9/10
“Come Saturday” just might be the fizziest, most incessant three minutes of sprightly pop these ears have been exposed to all year. Combining the glorious, pastel-shaded fuzz of a pre-Creation My Bloody Valentine with the danceable quirkiness of The Shins, “Come Saturday” is one of those songs that demands your attention and then won’t go away for months, not that you’ particularly want it to, of course.The New York Times - CMJ: A Hard Sound Not FarFrom ‘Gossip Girl’
Click above to read full article
click above to read full article
The Fader
Like riding your bicycle to your friends house after you’ve finished your homework.Indie-Mp3
I think it’s safe to say that even if POBPAH split tomorrow, people would still be talking about them and listening to their records for years to come. They’re not an ordinary band, they’re something special, something exciting, something to celebrate. They’re the band that, in my opinion, typify everything that’s great about indiepop at the moment.The Big Takeover
It’s been far too long since I’ve heard a record that’s made such a visceral impression on me as this unassuming, self-released jewel. The Pains’ opening salvo, “This Love is Fucking Right,” immediately jostles the senses with a flurry of jangle-laden riffs that pleasingly drill their way into your cranium, and won’t stop from there. The closest and most direct comparison would be that of the late ’80s Brit indie band Close Lobsters, as well as more recognizable names from the C-86 movement, such as Wedding Present and Mighty Lemon Drops. Even Ride’s first noisy batch of EPs that helped kick off the whole dreampop era weren’t as unremittingly intense and hook-savvy as this beauty. The band’s metronome perfect percussion (a drum machine?) and a full, rich mix abets Pains’ luscious proceedings that much more. I’m already dying to hear more from these New York whiz kids!Stereogum: Band to Watch
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart’s dreamy self-titled debut EP contains less than 15 minutes of music — more than enough to steal our pure hearts. (Admittedly, they had us from the go by titling the out-of-the-gates opening track “This Love is Fucking Right!”)…[The New York] trio mix sugary boy/girl vocals, Jesus & Mary Chain’s rain clouds and Darklands drum machine minus the face-melting noise, sneaker-gazing a la Black Tambourine (or, hey hey, rifle through the rest of the Slumberland back catalog to namedrop something with a bit more jangle) and punky Comet Gain(s) into addictive pop gold that locates a place beyond the band’s well-chosen influences. That said, if you’re in the mood for the brothers Reid check out the amply titled “Doing All the Things That Wouldn’t Make Your Parents Proud.” Want a little more Verve? Drift straight for the title track.
The L Magazine - Top 8 NYC Bands You Need To Hear
Rolling Stone (Germany) - 4 Stars
Erasing Clouds
…a perfect approximation of the attitude of youth, when you think you’re invincible. This band has the youthful sound to match it: driving energy and a guitar-and-drum-machine cloud of noise surrounding catchy pop melodies. Youthful, but at the same time classic, in the indie-pop tradition. The bouncier, messier side of that tradition, that is think of the Pastels maybe, or the most upbeat songs by bands like the Field Mice, 14 Iced Bears or the Razorcuts. Or don’t think at all; just listen and enjoy.It Covers the Hillsides
“Remember that time that girl you got all stupid nervous around in high school asked for a ride home one day, and then surprisingly kissed you before running into her house? Remember the ride home listening to some fuzzy-dreamy-pop song, taking the long way home on purpose? No? Oh wait, that was me….but that’s how their music feels…like an all fuzzed-out euphoria.
