Passion Pit-Manners

Passion Pit emerged onto the scene late in 2008, with their immediately popular EP, Chunk of Change. A project started as a Valentines present by Michael Angelakos for his girlfriend while in school in Buffalo, NY. After graduating and returning home to Boston, Passion Pit took on life, fleshing out Angelakos’ previous work and quickly gaining acclaim. Their musical styles fuse high-energy pop with psychedelic tinge electronic sounds with a scratchy high-pitched voice, which inspires listeners to dance and celebrate life. The band quickly followed this success with their debut album, Manners on Frenchkiss Records. Manners is a wondrous collection of songs playing soundtrack to the joyous and devilish festivities of imps, elves and whatever fantastical forest creature the imagination can create.

With the ringing bells of the opening track “Make Light” Passion Pit sets the tone of the level of expectation of the records overall tonality. There is a contrasting quality of logical subject matter masked by these lighthearted melodies that hypnotically deter the listener’s attention from the matters of fact in his/her life. “Little Secrets” the second track on the album incorporates a children’s choir handling the song’s chorus. This is one of many facets of this album exhibiting the creative ingenuity of how Passion Pit approach their craft with a fresh voice while retaining nostalgic qualities successful for their POP music predecessors.
Another obvious strength in Manners is the fact each track has the capability to stand alone without the reliance of an album gimmick or the over exposure of countless radio play. The subtle sentiments of Angelakos’ lyrics predominantly in Chunk of Change, are often masked by the fast tempo, high energy synthesizer and danceable beats in Manners; creating an evolved context by the collaborative efforts of the more fleshed out band. The band has made a number of appearances at this summer’s more notable music festivals and has been on an endless tour promoting Manners. The continuous live performances have strengthened a once very disappointing live realization of their synthesized album tracks. Manners has begun a reinvention of the band’s sound and is showing early indications of how this quick success is becoming evidence of the band’s longevity. I am curious to see if these accomplishments will affect the band’s creative approaches on the evolution of their music.

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Passion Pit