Passion Pit-Kindred Review

Passion Pit
Kindred
Columbia Records

Passion Pit are a synth-pop act from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Famous as the brainchild of singer-songwriter Michael Angelakos the group has a history of putting out enjoyable electronic pop. Largely successful throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, Angelakos is coming off his commercially most successful album Gossamer which was undoubtedly going to be a hard act to follow. Gossamer featured catchy pop hits wrapped in a cohesive project themed around Angelakos’ history of substance abuse. The album was lush, elegant, and every bit deserving of its spot at number 4 on the Billboard top 200. For this new project entitled Kindred, Angelakos tries to put together another collection of pop hits with endearing lyrics. Unfortunately Kindred comes off formulaic and lacking the catchy danceable tracks that Passion Pit have become known for. 

When going into a Passion Pit album there are some expectations. The listener should come to expect lush almost 8-bit keyboards, shout-able singalong choruses lead by the trademark high pitched squeal of Michael Angelakos, and danceable pop hits. While Angelakos undoubtedly strives for those standards on this new release this collection of songs just does not hit as effectively as on Gossamer or Manners. The album kicks off with the lead single “Lifted Up (1985),” which is anchored by a thumping bass drum and a chorus featuring those famous Angelakos high pitched vocals. The song features cheesy lyrics and attempts to be another classic singalong Passion Pit hit, but the track simply falls short. “Lifted Up” simply sounds like a Gossamer throwaway track.  This song as well as the ones that follow lack the fun memorable qualities that made former Passion Pit albums excellent.

Kindred struggles with being recognizably formulaic and the second track, “Whole Life Story” is perfectly evident of that. This song features the same verse-chorus-verse-chorus-breakdown-chorus pattern that by this point has become stale for Passion Pit. The tracks are becoming too predictable and Angelakos appears to be relying on a formula. Whether intentional or not the group could use a break from the mold. When listening to “Whole Life Story” the listener may feel like the song sounds remarkably similar to “Take a Walk”, or maybe “Carried Away”, or perhaps “The Reeling”, or even “Little Secrets”. The point is that Passion Pit could benefit from deviating from the predictable nature their music is falling under. 

“All I’ll Ever Have” was the first song that jumped off this album. The chorus is catchy, the keyboards are quirky and jangly, and the song sounds as if it could fit snugly on one of Passion Pit’s earlier and more interesting albums. However, just when I was beginning to believe this song was going to do something unpredictable or really begin to stand out the song falls victim to the same Angelakos formula as the list of songs I mentioned earlier. “Until We Can’t (Let’s Go)” is another song that suffers from these same criticisms. The song is the infectious danceable single that Passion Pit typically uses as the flagship of their albums. Although the song is formulaic, the excitement and high-pitched screech of Michael Angelakos is just irresistible. The song actually features a credit from acclaimed film score composer Hans Zimmer. The other standout track from this album is “Dancing on the Grave” which features incredibly lush keyboards that really create a beautiful ambiance.

The album closes with a few tracks that contain some endearing lyrics from Michael Angelakos. Angelakos has a track which I interpret as an expression of the comfort Angelakos feels when he is with his significant other which is quite endearing and the following track is a bit of a tribute to Angelakos’ brother. The final track is an auto-tune heavy ballad entitled “Ten Feet Tall”. The track is a bit anti-climactic. While the auto-tune has been successful for Angelakos on upbeat tracks like “The Reeling” on this slower ballad-type track the vocal effect just feels a bit overly dramatic. Overall the album has a few stand-out tracks that unfortunately suffer from a similar formula that had already run its course before this album was even released. The rest of the tracks are simply bland by Passion Pit standards. This album will ultimately be eclipsed by Passion Pit’s prior releases, but Angelakos had a behemoth of a task in topping Gossamer anyway. This album just struggles to find its own legs to stand on in the Passion Pit discography as well as the genre of Synth-Pop as a whole.

4/10
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Tom K.
4/19/2015