Album: Passion Pit – Manners

ALBUM REVIEW: Passion Pit – Manners
words: Matt McDonald

Press the play button, and marvel as ELO, The Bee Gees and all of your other shameless pop wet dreams rear their beards at the same time, miraculously sounding both credible and cool. There’s handclaps, children’s choirs and exclusively falsetto vocals. It isn’t the Scissor Sisters. It’s Passion Pit’s debut album and it’s the best oxymoron ever.

Listening to ‘Manners’ is like swaying through a world of a million discos in a dream-like state. From the slow-burning ‘Swimming In The Flood’, whose layers escalate from the initial strings to a myriad of 80s synth sounds and drum loops, to the sonic maelstrom of most recent single ‘The Reeling’ and the wailing, Irish trad-sampling lullaby of ‘Sleepyhead’, Michael Angelakos and crew have created that most elusive of things: a record that looks both backward and forward, that draws from the past and uses its influences to craft something both relevant and postmodernist.

The hype at the start of the year may have been muted compared to the likes of lung-with-limbs Florence Welch and that quiff Esser, but those quiet voices have been wholly vindicated. With ‘Manners’, Passion Pit have lit the fuse of 2009, pushing the bar to the skies while simultaneously shaking their hips at their contemporaries and rivals. ‘Danciest’ may not have worked its way into the Oxford English Dictionary yet, but in the light of this album, it’s only a matter of time. Passion Pit take you by the hand and lead you into the crowd with shimmering symphonies such as closer ‘Seaweed Song.’ One of the records of the year. Now stop reading this review and go and buy it.

9.2

mp3: Passion Pit – Make Light [alt]

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