Toronto – If there was an awards season for blogosphere music, Passion Pit would probably win the 2009 award for most hyped band. Much like Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend and many others before, this Massachusetts band has been endlessly written about n recent times. To make the most of this situation, they have released their debut album “Manners” thru Frenchkiss Records. Before I review this record, lets see what Jarvis Cocker had to say about it:
This is basically DANCE by Justice, as played by born-again Christians
That quote is pretty dead on. However before you take that in negative light, realize that Justice is pretty damn good, and “born again Christians” just means the album is clean. Manners is a solid effort for a debut. It’s a bit top heavy I think (most of the tracks I like are at the beginning), but overall, Passion Pit has developed a nice happy pop rock dance sound. I don’t even know what kind of genre this music is anymore because it fuses so many aspects of different sounds. It’s got some of that group vocals ala Los Campesinos, its got the sound samples of kids singing ala Justice and catchy melodies of well, I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure out what else they sound like, but I can’t quite place it. It’s all good though. Tracks like “Little Secrets”, “Sleepyhead’ and the Calvin Harris approved “The Reeling” are guaranteed to be on summer mixtapes somewhere.
Overall, a pretty damn good effort from a band that has only been around all of two years. Maybe next time they can find a more inspired choice for an album cover.
Passion Pit plays Lees Palace on June 16th.
