The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - falling apart so slow, 2017

"the glimmering "Falling Apart So Slow" charts a seasonal year wherein intimacy unravels in his absence"

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - the asp at my chest, 2014

"Listen to the way “The Asp at My Chest” closes out the whole affair with a waft of brass, and you’ll hear a new kind of dusk glowing on Pains. It’s not particularly ambitious, but it’s incredibly pleasant, and you’ve got to hand it to a guy who can keep a smile up even as he’s skipping through his melancholy."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - life after life, 2014

"This was one of the first Pains tracks to prominently feature Peggy Wang on backing vocals less (she left the band before the album cycle), marking the shift to a slightly new lineup and poppier direction."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - the garret, 2017

"The Echo of Pleasure, the fourth LP by New York’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, is an exquisite—if also occasionally too familiar—entry into the modern landscape of retro synth pop. Led by the “big-hearted, idealistic” songwriting of frontman Kip Berman—and fleshed out by a variety of players and singers, plus producer Andy Savours—the album bursts with breezy and tight arrangements, meditative melodies, and beautifully poignant lyricism, making it a simultaneously boyish and mature exploration of love, longing and everything in-between."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - coral and gold, 2014

"Coral and Gold" and "Beautiful You" feel really towering and fragile at the same time - which is something I really like in music, sonic and emotional"

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - beautiful you, 2014

"A brighter, more polished synth-pop/indie-pop sound compared to their earlier shoegaze/dream-pop roots."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - kelly, 2014

"The new record is the band’s most musically sophisticated to date, channeling the gilded pop optimism of bands like Aztec Camera, The House of Love and The Lightning Seeds, while maintaining The Pains’ penchant for earworm melodies and emotional candor."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - stay, 2017

"From the initial rush to the all-too-familiar crash, the Pains have spent the better part of a decade charting the highs and lows of young love. But Berman, like many of us, isn’t quite so young anymore. What happens when all the love in your life is no longer as fleeting as a three-minute pop tune? Echo of Pleasure tries to get to the heart of the matter."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - stay alive, 2009

"The Pains of Being Pure at Heart turned 10 years old the other day. I’ve listened to it three times in the past 24 hours, and I appreciate it just as much as I did when I was that strange teenager."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - too tough, 2011

"With their warm, fuzzy guitars and heart-on-sleeve lyrics, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart felt like a dream come true. From what I can remember, 2009 was a banner year for music, but of all the great records that came out that year, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart was arguably the one that most closely aligns with my tastes now, 16 years later."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - strange, 2011

"The album sounds like we're taking away what we were hiding behind before. Lyrically, the first record had a lot of remembered experiences that I was looking back on and trying to make more clever, which can sound contrived. I like the idea of lyrics that don't get beyond themselves but catch you and make an impression. I think that's more emotionally compelling."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - contender, 2009

"Though it is tempting to tag The Pains of Being Pure at Heart as dream pop, shoe gaze, or even twee, according to Kip Berman, they simply make pop music, "without hyphenation or any other strange and unnecessary caveats." Instead of allowing their vocals to be swallowed up under layers of effects, the male and female harmonies of Kip Berman and Peggy Wang-East ring out and become a real centerpiece of their music. Together, Berman and Wang-East sing about both saccharine-sweet topics like young love and some harder hitting topics like death, drugs, and heartache."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - gentle sons, 2009

"pure indie-pop to hold close to your heart."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - come saturday, 2009

"driving beat, massive guitars and the overall sanguine mood of the track. It’s a falling in love in the summer song for the indie set, and the world doesn’t seem to ever have enough of those."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - my terrible friend, 2011

"It seemed that everyone who came was satisfied with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s performance. The crowd became much happier when we suddenly saw Kip came out from backstage to greet the fans. Suddenly more and more people gathered around him. I realized what a sweet person he was. He smiled, talked and took picture with everyone. Then, two other members also walked out from the backstage. Alex and Peggy also greeted the fans. Lots of fanboys who already kept calling Peggy’s name after the gig were over suddenly circled around her. Some of them also asked a hug from her. Looked like every one couldn’t resist the loveliness of this keyboardist."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - everything with you, 2009

"Everything from the oh-so-twee name to singer Kip Berman’s affected English accent screams wrong, but it sounds so right; a bit of Mary Chain here, a withering Moz-esque turn of phrase there and a lot of early, jangly My Bloody Valentine everywhere else. But it’s much more than the sum of its parts and too effortlessly effervescent to be studied. Pure indie-pop to hold close to your heart."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - a teenager in love, 2009

"What makes this band so difficult to shake from its influences? Well, its members don’t seem interested in being separated from them. Where most bands use their favorite sounds as a jumping-off point, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart live in the sounds they love. What makes them successful, in spite of this, is how they combine all these found sounds. The band marries well the harshness of a Superchunk or a My Bloody Valentine with the soft melodies of twee pop."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - anne with an e, 2011

"We came out with an EP in 2009 after the record and we also did a stand alone single last summer. I mean, there were times when we thought, ‘Oh, this is great’, and it wasn’t, but the basic songs that we really, really like ended up being on the record; like ‘Belong’ and ‘Strange’, ‘Even in Dreams’, ‘The Body’. But some stuff turned out better than we thought and other stuff wasn’t as good. Songs like ‘Anne with an E’ and ‘Girl with a Thousand Dreams’, I initially thought those weren’t right for the record, but then we recorded them and they just made sense with the other songs; offered a balance and dynamic."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - heart in your heartbreak, 2011

"The music consists of a fuzzy blur with the consistency and effect of caffeine coated adderal, but somehow it transmits itself into becoming much more than that. It almost seems to be conflicted with an awful case of 59 sound-it-is, because no matter how many hooks they try, no hook falls flat, no matter how many cliché’s they pump into their music, it all sounds fresh, and goddamn it, by the end of the month, this entire album is just going to sound anthemic."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - anymore, 2017

“Pains was a distinct moment in my life. I started the group when I first moved to New York and completed our last record, The Echo Of Pleasure, shortly before my daughter was born and I moved to Princeton, NJ. From that time forward, I never really felt the same – and the music I was creating didn’t feel the same either.”