I swear I start these things on Mondays, but I need to get
better about actually posting them on Mondays. Anyway, I’m going to try and
make up for my lack of Music Mondays posts with (hopefully) three this week,
and to keep it feeling like a single post, they’ll all be from a single album: Kindred, Passion Pit’s new album.
I’ve long been a fan of Passion Pit. Manners was an all-time classic album, and Gossamer topped even that (although it admittedly took me a few
listens to come to that opinion). I don’t
know if I would call Kindred better
than the latter, but I liked it to start with, and it’s grown on me as fast as Gossamer did, possibly faster.
I started getting excited for the album as soon as it was
announced, and almost right away, Passion Pit added photos to Facebook of
upcoming lyrics. All of the lines were great, and two of them came from one
early-release song, “Where the Sky Hangs”. “I
put my hands in the air, and my knees to the ground” (in Morse code), and “I
get caught up in your heart strings”. I can’t really say why I got as
excited for those images as I did; after all, they are just words. There is
something beautiful about them, though.
Thankfully, the song itself lives up to the beautiful poetry.
I’ve heard it compared to “Constant Conversation”, and I can see the
comparison, but I feel like “Where the Sky Hangs” is the mature cousin of “Constant
Conversations”, if anything. It feels so much smoother. The opening bass line
sets this mood, and is a thing of wonder. Michael Angelakos brings his usual
falsetto down a little for verses, which makes the jump up for the chorus feel
that much grander. The whole thing is the usual lush and intricate arrangements
of a Passion Pit, but at their best, with swirling synths over the funky bass
groove and a smooth rhythm guitar. The bridge is broken up with beautiful staccato
string sounds.
But still, there’s just something about the chorus that
really, really makes the song for me. “I get/Caught up in your heartstrings/Way
up/Where another sky hangs” is just such beautiful imagery, and with the sounds
gives a soaring sensation.
Man, just writing about it again is making me reconsider my
initial ranking of Kindred. There’s
more to come from this album later, though.