Listen To This!

Yes, it’s been called retro, sounding like the C86 bands of old. Agreed, there’s no hiding the influences of My Bloody Valentine, Belle and Sebastian, and I’d even go as far as to include Teenage Fanclub and Camera Obscura into the mix. But since when was this a bad thing to bring fresh new tunes into the foray, considering the 70s punk/glam inspired offerings by the Walkmen and the Strokes during the early 2000s?

The recording is distant, the vocals less present in the mix than a lot of recent overproduced pop-rock, but The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have created a delicious slice of ‘tweemo’.

Opener ‘Contender’ immediately displays the My Bloody Valentine influences, while ‘This Love Is F______ Right’ and ‘Stay Alive’ offer intriguingly suspicious lyrics and spot-on songsmithery respectively.