Weekly > Reviews
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Thekla, Bristol
Some things really annoy me. Take the Daily Mail. If you want to set me off on a rant, you can quote something from this right-wing paraphernalia and you may as well forget the next hour of your life. You’ll get bored, while I turn red in the face.
However, you might also wish you never got me started on the subject of food: my turn on. While I get all passionate about the joys of good grub, you’ll just get hungry whilst the hours while away. I know this is a music review, and I’m getting there believe me, the point I’m trying to make is some things just get people talking. They have an opinion about it: good or bad. Which leads me to tonight’s music.
I missed The Kick Inside, tonight’s first support thanks to the Thekla’s strange gig curfew of 10pm. All bands have to adhere to a rather strict timetable, which means that if the sound check runs late (which it did this eve) your slot becomes somewhat limited. So, I only managed to catch The Depreciation Guild and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
What I hadn’t realised before this evening was that The Depreciation Guild is a side project of two of the members from the ‘Pains. Kurt Feldman, drummer with the ‘Pains, takes centre stage to give us vocals. However, I think his former role is far better suited to him. You see Depreciation Guild’s sound is built around the classic 8-bit Nintendo console. It’s quite carefully done as well, it doesn’t feel intrusive, or as naff as it sounds, it’s gentle music you’d listen to while getting on with something else.
The vocals did seem to let them down somewhat on the evening… I didn’t think his tone lent well to the music as they didn’t seem particularly strong, but I don’t know if that had anything to do with the Thekla’s equipment.
- The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
- Thekla, Bristol (30th November 2009)
- Category: Live
- Label: Fortuna Pop!
- Support: The Depreciation Guild + The Kick Inside
- Reviewed by: nats
- Published on: 14 Dec 2009
- Photography by: Stereogum
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesBecause when the ‘Pains came on, it seemed that keyboardist/vocalist Penny Wang had problems too. You just couldn’t hear her very well, which is a shame, as the ‘Pains heavily rely on their girl/boy vocals that give their sound a dreamy, twee sound. Similar to The Depreciation Guild their music is a calm shoegazy affair with melancholy lyrics which have all of course been done before, and make them comparable to lots of 90’s bands… but they do it well… well I’ve thought so when I’ve listened to their album.
It’s a real shame that the album’s confidence didn’t really translate to their live performance. Songs that I looked forward to were Come Saturday, Stay Alive and Everything With You. But the subtleties of these were lost live, it just sounded quite flat and if I’m honest boooooorring…which brings me back to how I started the review, which is to say that some things just get people talking. Unfortunately from tonight’s performance, they won’t be getting ranting or raving, just plain indifference.
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We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.