The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Rather unfortunately Brooklyn-based four-piece The Pains of Being Pure at Heart seem to be intent on having some kind of conversation with those ghosts of twee, The Field Mice. In 1989, Bobby Wratten wrote a plea on behalf of a couple of girls in love: This love is as good as any other, this love is not wrong. On their debut single a couple of years ago, POPBAH offered their riposte. Starting on the defensive, they recognised, is never going to get you anywhere. This love is not wrong? Forget that: You're my sister, and this love is FUCKING RIGHT!Wratten's more recent attempts at writing about lesbian love have been less clumsy - well, actually, utterly stunning (see the transcendantly and heartbreakingly beautiful Idyllwild on most recent Trembling Blue Stars album The Last Holy Writer) - but POPBAH evidently haven't finished with his back catalogue yet. Following up on their contender for the best-named song ever, they released their second single-proper at the end of the last year, and the title again had a familiar ring. Everything With You - presumably a nod to The Field Mice's Everything About You, which can be found straight after This Love is Not Wrong on their Snowball album - was a rather sweet allusion to a world a pair of teenage friends/lovers are wrapped up in.So, yes, there's those little homages. Beyond that, though, POPBAH seem determined with their self-titled debut album to pick up where The Field Mice left off nearly twenty years ago. It's undeniably derivative, but it's hard to see how a fan of the latter band could possibly be disappointed by the music to be found herein; the trademark jangly guitars and wistful swoon have been updated with more bite and a slightly more modern edge, a little adolescent wryness and occasional pretty echoes from backing vocalist and keyboardist Peggy Wang. And really, this is a more consistently engaging album than any their forbears actually wrote; there's perhaps a slight lull in the middle with The Tenure Itch and Stay Alive, but in general it manages to stay the right side of that dangerous line of bland sameyness that so often threatens twee pop bands. Apart from the couple of singles, highlights are up-tempo second song Come Saturday, another cute (and insular) teenagers-in-love song, and Teenager in Love, which ironically is nothing of the sort, but rather a paean to a friend lost to Christ and heroin.It won't change the world and it's not trying to, but sometimes it's necessary to stand up and assert the importance of the things in one's own little corner of the world. Such a love is always fucking right. 75%The Pains of Being Pure at Heart on MySpace