Album Review: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, "Days of Abandon"

San Francisco – Like any good band, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart—comprised of singer/guitarist Kip Berman and the various, oft-changing system of musicians that orbit him—have evolved their sound. Over the past several years, Pains (for the sake of brevity, I will refer to the band as such within the confines of this review) have dug themselves a nice little niche in the realm of indie pop. Both of the band’s first two albums, a self-titled debut in 2009 and it’s 2011 successor Belong leaned more towards a noisier, heavier sound, bringing brusque assertiveness to Berman’s otherwise sweeter-sounding vocals. Belong saw a minute softening of these tendencies, but it wasn’t until this year’s Days of Abandon, the band’s third LP, that the kind of dense, fuzzy platform the band had built for themselves was, well, abandoned.

There is a palpable sense of loss that permeates the entirety of this album, whether it is the death of a loved one, unrequited affection, or the departure of a former self. As the title suggests, Days of Abandonis about letting go, and while some of the songs emanate a sense of growth following such release, much of the album is stained with regret.

The opening track, the quietly commanding “Art Smock,” speaks fondly of a simpler time gone by, as Berman delicately strums and his guitar and reminisces about “torn jeans and sweaters in lost and found,” yet “should’ve guessed it was gonna fall to pieces in my hands.” Berman is lamenting the loss of a friend or lover’s former self—or the one he used to know (“I liked you better in your art smock”)—and does so in a very heartfelt, Stuart Murdoch- [of Belle & Sebastian]-like manner. This is perhaps the album’s most intimate track, as it lacks the electric instrumentation that swims throughout the rest of the LP.

Sound wise, the album reads like a love letter to the heartbreak felt in 70s/80s dark wave and Gothic alternative rock, and serves as homage to many of that music’s pioneers, namely Bauhaus, Joy Division, and The Cure. Besides its sleepy opener, the whole of Days of Abandon drips with neon electric guitar, brightly eccentric synth play and driving percussion. The second track, “Simple and Sure” (which sounds oddly similar to The Cure’s “Close To Me”) could very easily be about Robert Smith (of The Cure) himself, as its lyrics describe “a man in complicated times,” and the chorus repeats over and over the mantra “I just wanna be loved,” something that Smith basically struggled with throughout the entire first half of his career.

The Gothic theme continues afterwards, dealing with death (“Beautiful You”) and apocalypse (“Until The Sun Explodes”), as well as unrequited love with the beautiful torch song “Coral and Gold” and the tear-stricken “Life After Life,” one of the tenderer songs on the album, in which new addition/female vocalist Jen Goma—in another Belle & Sebastian-like move—dominates the lyrical content in a painfully melodic, brave-faced manner, singing about one who got away and found happiness elsewhere.

Pains also play with mythology in the gorgeous “Eurydice,” based on the Greek myth of Eurydice, the daughter of Apollo and wife to Orpheus, who died tragically after being bitten by a snake and was sent to the underworld. Orpheus, a poet and musician, sang songs so mournful that all of the deities wept and told him to go to the underworld and play his songs to retrieve his fallen bride. Hades agreed that she could indeed return, but only if she followed behind him, not to be looked upon until they reached the land of the living. Thinking he had been tricked by Hades, he turned back just before reaching the portal, and Eurydice vanished back into the land of the dead. Pains’ version of the myth is simpler, and basically only an allusion to the myth itself, but Berman’s quivering vocals over the deceptively joyful orchestration create a powerful juxtaposition that evokes a violent sense of longing which coincides with the overall tone of the album.

Days of Abandon, at times, sounds like more of a celebration than a requiem, as the bouncy, playful arrangement of the music hides the more somber, grief-stricken nature of the lyrics, much like the very human experience of smiling profusely to hide one’s tears, or having fun and dancing at the wedding of that ex you never really got over. The dark wave/Gothic rock bands of the 80s did this quite well, making dance music you wouldn’t feel so bad crying during, and this album attests to that genre’s longevity. People still feel like crap when things don’t go their way, but sometimes there’s nothing one can do except grin and bear it. With Days of Abandon, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart make a grinning and bearing it into an art form, celebrating that which makes us human (that being emotion), and the most human way we go about dealing with it (that being trying to hide it).

Still, the album suggests, we often succumb to our emotions eventually, as laid out in the album’s final track “The Asp in My Chest,” in which Berman and Co. revel in the fact that the heart remains intact despite its venomous tendencies. However, we still return to love after love has left us, again and again, no matter how bruised and battered we were when we came out before. And what’s more human than that?

Get more info about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, plus videos, music and more at their facebook page.

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Corey Bell

Corey Bell is no stranger to music.Having spent the better part of the past decade at concerts and music festivals around the globe, he finds he is most at home in the company of live music.Originally a native of New England, he has since taken residence in New York and New Orleans, and now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.He achieved his Bachelor of Arts from Goddard College in Vermont via an undergraduate study entitled “Sonic Highways: Musical Immersion on the Roads of America," in which he explores the interactions between music, natural environment, and emotion while travelling along the scenic byways and highways of the United States.His graduate thesis, “Eighty Thousand’s Company,” features essays regarding the historical and socio-economic facets of contemporary festival culture intertwined with personal narrative stories of his experiences thereof.He is the former editor of Art Nouveau Magazine and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from California College of the Arts.