Critiques CD: Purity Ring | Shrines

Passion Pit’s follow-up to 2009 debut Manners forgoes the romantic whimsy that initially made frontman Michael Angelakos’s vocal quirks and falsetto delivery so endearing. Gossamer is an exercise in catharsis, touching on emotional strife and relationship turbulence and melodically delivering some political and economic “real talk”, all dressed up in their synthpop stylings. The result is hit-and-miss; it’s hard for dark, deeply personal subject matter not to come off as contrived when paired with a poptastic electronic sound, which inevitably conveys a sense of superficiality and fleeting trendiness. But where its lyrical catharsis holds it back, the instrumentality on Gossamer strives to compensate, offering more of the kind of inventive approach to electropop that helped make Manners stand out among the recent 80s-esque resurgence.