Sunday, March 28, 2010

Passion Pit

A few months back I procured a copy of Passion Pit's Manners from a dear friend whose musical library generally aligns with, if not compliments my own. Let's say, if music tastes were measured on scales weighted with arbitrary indie genres, this friend's top five would tilt slightly more toward Dashboard Confessional and mine would tend to the Iron and Wine side. That's why I was initially disappointed when I optimistically popped the CD into the stereo and thirty seconds into the first track thought to myself, "WTF?" I get the commercial appeal of "Sleepyhead" in all it's chipmunk catchy-ness, but similarly squeaky tracks like "The Reeling" didn't have the same effect. Apparently I am not the only who reacted this way, as there exists an album consisting entirely "Reeling" remixes, I guess in an attempt to get the track "right". There is something about the unrelenting falsetto and apparent lack of diminuendo that contributes to this feeling of being trapped in an explosive vacation Bible school sing along.
However
after subjecting myself to several weeks of the electro-glee club onslaught, the album started to grow on me. I find myself bopping to "Sleepyhead" and "Folds in Your Hands" as a pick me up on the way to work. While it's not an album I would recommend to first-timers, I'd hand it to a friend that enjoyed music from the pleasantly weird realm. So, Passion Pit, you win again.