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Monday, July 20, 2009

Block Party / Album / Song / Upcoming / Love Today in the Pains of Being Pure at Heart: "Contender"

Posted by Eric Grandy on Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 11:48 AM

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In which we anticipate the Pains of Being Pure at Heart's set Sat, July 25th at the Capitol Hill Block Party by appreciating their self-titled Slumberland Records debut one song at a time in order of album sequencing (with perhaps some discussion of b-sides/pre-album cuts come Saturday).

Track #1: "Contender"

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart opens with a five second long peal of sunny, subdued guitar feedback (and is that a little swirl of keyboards just at the start?) before the jangly* guitars—electric and fuzzy as well as clean and direct—kick in, time kept with just a lazily shaking tambourine. Singer/guitarist Kip Berman sighs into the first verse, his soft singing tuneful but barely there. The song unfolds slowly, just two verses and two choruses ("At the back of a crowded scene/you saw the boys in white sing, "I'm a pretender"/but you never were a contender"), slightly accusing but mostly just ambivalent (an an eminently tenable attitude in the realm of indie pop). It's all just as sleepy and sedative as a field of poppies, and it's a fine invitation to the rest of the record.

*Yes, "jangly" is on many a list of Words Which Music Critics Should Strive to Avoid, but no amount of striving changes the fact that Pains of Being Pure at Hearts' guitars just jangle like corduroy pockets full of jangly jangling pennies.