>Possibly the most idiotic, frustrating thing about rock music right now is its tiresome and seemingly endless ability to create new ‘scenes’ out of old ones. Nostalgia has infected the one thing which, in the wake of punk, would supposedly tear up the past and focus solely on the future. Maybe bands or journalists or radio pluggers or whoever it is that actually makes things happen in the murky depths of rock have lost their nerve waiting for a new, exciting movement to begin and are happy to brand old ideas with the dumb, shiny sheen of a “New-” prefix. Take an undeserved bow, New Rave, New Rock, Nu-Metal and all of your unwanted friends.
Perhaps it’s pop ‘n’ rock music’s innate simplicity (See yesterday’s New Band, The Gravity Crisis, for more guff on this topic) which means that old sounds are endlessly recycled, and really, it’s one of it’s most endearing qualities. Who hasn’t ever thrilled at the moment when a new song you hear reminds you – for a split second – of one of your favourite bands? Well, this happened to me, today, as I was listening to Today’s (superb) New Band, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart.
After only a millisecond of listening to the cracks and explosions of drums and guitar fuzz that is the wonderful Come Saturday, I suddenly had a brain-flash of being 16 again, when I first heard, in quick succession, My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain. This is good nostalgia, the type that leaves you a bit giddy and wide-eyed with joy, and not the sort that is dreamt up by someone with an ironic haircut who’s, you know, getting into this Indie music stuff, yeah?
It would be glib to say that if you like MBV and JAMC, you’ll love The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, but what the hell, it’s true. If you love songs that drive forward with breathless abandon, all fuzzy, warm and colourful as a novelty Christmas sweater, then let yourself swoop head first into their songs. The fact that they have a song about Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan is the cherry on the icing on the frosting on the cake.
The worrying element of The Pains of Being Pure At Heart‘s ace-ness is that they’ll get lumped in with the dregs of the latest music revival – the return of the dreaded Shoegaze (though by now some smug idiot has already termed it “New-Gaze” as they were riding their micro-scooters to work). This would be a travesty and must not happen. Reclaim them as your own, right now, by listening to their fantastic songs on this Myspace page, here!