Press Contact (US)
daniel@forcefieldpr.com

Alex – Bass / Kip – Guitar + Vocals / Kurt – Drums / Peggy – Keyboard + Vocals

Press:

On Higher Than the Stars EP

Pitchfork – 8.0
At their core, Pains aren’t about scuzz or even shoegaze, they’re a classic bookish indie pop band– twee, you might even say– and Higher Than the Stars, an EP of four new songs and one excellent remix, drives that point home very clearly…Pains could be the most promising indie pop group around.

Allmusic
The band didn’t really need to prove that there were lovely songs beneath all the noise, but they truly have;.it’s the kind of song that will be at the end of the 2009 mixtape staple among lovers of great pop songs, indie or otherwise.

AU
A glimpse into infinite possibilities. Not even the sky is the limit.

Quick Before it Melts
A pure indie pop treat; something that their influences never could have pulled off… the Pains of Being Pure of Heart manage to cram more doe-eyed optimism and fun into 5 songs than most people can do in five albums.

Skatterbrain
Staying up all night in the rain with my friends on what was effectively the last night of my Summer, followed by a heavy-eyed morning watching the sun come up with coffee in hand and “Higher Than The Stars” blasting as well as it could out of my tiny macbook speakers is what really made it sink in. Contextually, this experience hardly meshes with the song, but those dreamy keyboards and that hypnotic vocal melody are making me feel more than any words possibly could at this very moment. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart fucking matter.

On The Pains of Being Pure at Heart LP

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.

Rolling Stone

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 players

Dusted Magazine

“This is an important record for these times, a game changer”

On Everything With You 7″ single

Skatterbrain

My 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.

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

Clash Magazine (UK)

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.

On The Pains of Being Pure at Heart EP

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

New York Press Feature [ click to read the full article].

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.

Click for Lyrics

Higher Than the Stars

shitfaced, fumbling in a dark place, drinking in the last days
this street looks just like the next street, bumblefuck on repeat

this time you should have stopped but where’s the fun?
the outcome, the only friend you ever had is setting off with a rich son

so sure she was like a brother ’til you dropped another
so sure you kept it under covers, until you knew you loved her

now you can’t think straight, because you’re not straight
in the back of her mothers car
no secret’s too safe, and how you can’t stay
in the back of her mother’s car

no secret’s too safe, and how you can’t stay
higher than the stars.

103

you can pray all day to satan
you can drive pretty fast
you can drink with your prescriptions
but it never comes to pass

I know you don’t believe me
but you’re gonna see 103

you can make marks with a razor
you can choke out on the bed
but do you feel a sense of failure
when you just can’t end up dead

so how can I get it through to you
i just don’t think you’re death wish is going to come true

Falling Over

if you can’t decide, i should step aside
he is well and good and does what he should
but i just can’t understand what you’re doing with my hand
on the longest day of the year
this night should never end, no this night should never spend
could you walk away?

don’t you touch me, just be cool
don’t you touch me, i’d fall over for you

now i see our sad century
and our luck is hardly good
so why do just what we would?

it’s not the love it’s just the tear
and i know i should be scared
but i don’t ‘don’t care’ anymore

it’s the opposite of faith
and i know these aren’t the days
could you walk away?

it’s not a matter of letting go
it’s just a matter of vertigo

Twins

you were a friend or maybe a twin
i never really could decide
you came to my door, i was on the floor
i couldn’t let you up inside

i didn’t mean to let you down
and now i know everything that’s good is gone

i couldn’t explain when i said you’re a pain
i never knew another way
all the times that we saw falling down every hall
the better parts have been erased

i tried to make it happen
i tried to do things right
i swallowed two and thought of you
but never saw your sight

i slept away the summer
i dreamt away the days
but the nightmares came when i woke up
and knew you were away