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| Columbia · discogs.com |
The music of Michael Angelakos boasts a consistency of style to be envied by his contemporaries. Far from the stark complexion associated with early synthesisers, Passion Pit's albums are unfailingly warm and sweet. Angelakos' dewey-eyed optimism and lilting falsetto complement his technicolour blitzkrieg smash hits that can hold their own against the likes of Miss Perry and Miss Gaga. Insubstantial aspirations to blockbusterdom run far and wide, but Angelakos can talk the talk.
After the flighty and slightly oversaccharine stylings of his previous project, the aptly-titled Gossamer, Kindred marks a welcome return to earth. Consider the contrast between album covers: the former is a hazy, gauzy, indistinct pink whereas the latter focuses on a child's thousand-yard stare. Behind him, an idyllic family stages a picture-perfect tableau. It is only the child who engages with the listener. Only he is unwilling to indulge the charade.
His boredom is almost palpable. Any former child can remember the sense of being restrained to one's seat at the dinner table by social convention, and despite the vibrant range of potential conversation topics, fielding questions on only schoolwork, one's height and the relative proximity of the mashed potatoes.
Kindred is a work of sunny perseverance. Though largely unblemished by the dullness implied by the snapshot of Angelakos' youth and by his continued dealings with bipolar disorder, it is conscious that these allow it to exist, and is all the richer for it. After all, we appreciate the sweetness of joy so much more after supping bitter disappointment for so long, though not all of us funnel our efforts into designing gleeful, blocky riffs from warped vocal samples.
Much of the album, explicitly or not, is about the grounding, steadying influence of Angelakos' newlywed wife: rejoicing in newfound stability and planning future exploits from an unprecedentedly solid footing. Unfortunately, reality has since ensued and she is no longer his wife. Life goes on, and gayness has a sneaky way of avoiding detection and redirecting attention for far longer than is sensible, decent or kind.
Is that disaffected, disarming gaze an ironic counterpoint to the cheerful artifice of Kindred? Or is it a reminder that genuine happiness is only enhanced by contrasting sorrow? I suspect the latter. But in any case you need not worry about the child. He is incubating a personality. He is learning patience. One day he will be an artist.