Radio Exile | Passionate About Passion Pit

Passionate About Passion Pit

By Tom Williams January 6, 2009 Post a comment | Email the author

I hate the hype. It’s dumb, really. Hype ruins good bands. Take a cool indie pop band like Vampire Weekend, add massive amounts of hype and if they do not sound like the second coming of Jesus to new listeners then they’re immediately regarded as “overrated” and at best forgotten, at worst belittled by asinine comments on Brooklyn Vegan. Hype destroys young bands. Ever wonder why you never hear about the third album by any band out of England? Because they debut is always hyped beyond sanity, the sophomore album of course falls short of expectations, and if the band is still together to release a third album, they’ve been dropped by their label.

Hype = bad. I hate to see a band like Passion Pit [Myspace] get as hyped as they are because they’re a) really good and b) very easy to hype. All the elements are there. A great back story (their EP, Chunk of Change, was originally a Valentines Day gift to lead man Michael Angelakos’ girlfriend. Lucky girl she is), a likable image (lovable Boston hipster college students stumbling into greatness), and most important, a great EP.

It’s hard to hate this band (unless you hate falsetto; then it’s easy). The songs are just so damn likable and catchy. I first listened to this album as a skeptic; any song as hyped as “Sleepyhead” is bound to be underwhelming. It took a few listens but I too soon added my voice to the chorus of those proclaiming the brilliance of this song. You remember the lead song on the first Clap You Hands Say Yeah album, the annoyingly awesome one about clapping your hands? Take that song and have Wolf Parade cover it at. That’s what “Sleepyhead” sounds like.

“Sleepyhead” is not the only great song on the EP; it’s just the most immediate and the most overtly pop. Upon repeated listens opening track “I’ve Got Your Number” proves to be nearly as memorable, with it’s bedroom fuzz-drenched synch chirps and beats and distorted multi-tracked vocals. The correct music critic cliche to wield in describe the following track, “Smile For Me”, is that it is “awash in synths”. Though it ends up sounding slightly LCD Soundsystem-ish with it’s cowbell and whistle, it ends up being my favorite song on the album in spite of itself. The remaining three tracks, while not leading me to shout platitudes from a rooftop, are nonetheless catchy and enjoyable, if not quite as memorable as the aforementioned three songs.

“Sleepyhead” [mp3]

Passion Pit has already signed to Columbia UK (remember my whole hype diatribe four paragraphs ago?) so it remains to be seen if their debut will turn into an overly polished and soulless Black Kids redux or if the messily ecstatic and eccentric nature of this EP will begat a worthy offspring. Regardless, this EP is, and will, remain absolutely worthwhile.