Nation of Language, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Anika

Their sound often channels the jangle-pop sound heard from bands like the Smiths, New Order, and early My Bloody Valentine. A few publications have exclaimed that their music sounds as if it could seamlessly back a John Hughes film. With the groups overly ambitious sound and exuberant hooks this really does seem like an excellent comparison. The group also takes substantial influence from C86-eque bands like the Field Mice and Black Tambourine.

The group is largely the vision of lead singer Kip Berman. Berman was originally from Philadelphia, but moved to Portland, Oregon. In Oregon he attended Reed College and formed multiple short lived bands. After his time in college he moved to New York City and met future bandmate Alex Naidus who was his co-worker at the time. The two shared a similar love for music particularly dream-pop and 90s noise rock groups like Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins. The two recruited Peggy Wang as the keyboardist and started playing very concise sets to small audiences. One of their first gigs was at Peggy Wang’s birthday party. It was just Berman, Naidus, Wang and a drum machine at this time. The band went on establishing a fan base for themselves and put out their debut EP through their self-created label Painbow.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart would eventually leave Painbow to join Slumberland (a label that many of the band’s idols were on including Black Tambourine). The group went on to release their self-titled debut album through this label. Their first LP was not only critically garnered, it was also commercially viable going all the way to number 9 on the “Billboard Heatseekers Chart”. The band’s sophomore album “Belong” came out on 29 March 2011 to rave reviews. “Belong” was produced and mixed by British audio engineer Alan Moulder. His resume is impressive to say the least. He has worked with shoegaze legends like My Blood Valentine, Ride and the Jesus and Mary Chain and influential post-punk revivalist such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nine Inch Nails and Interpol. The band toured extensively for this album playing alongside Twin Shadow for multiple shows.

The band’s follow up album “Days of Abandon”, released on 13 May 2014 saw a change in the band’s line up. Founding members Naidus and Wang both left the group as well as drummer Kurt Feldman although he was present during the recording of this album. Jen Goma from A Sunny Day in Glasgow and brass player Kelly Prat joined the band to help make the record. Andy Savours who is credited for producing music for My Bloody Valentine and Sigur Ros contributed in the recording process for “Days of Abandon”. The group’s line up continued to evolve during this period. Anton Hochheim, brother of Christoph Hochheim and co-member of the band Ablebody stepped in as the band’s new drummer, Jacob Sloan filled in as bass player and Jessica Weiss of Fear of Men fame replaced Wang as keyboardist. The band’s sound still kept its shimmering sound, but was perceived as being more articulated. Critics paralleled the group’s sound to that of the Smiths, the Cure and the New Pornographers (a band who Pains of Being Pure of Hearts would open for in support of their third album).