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Manners

Article published 13th May 09
Manners Hear

What:
Manners

Who:
Passion Pit

On:

Columbia

Win:
One of two Passion Pit packs including an album and tee! To enter email win@fourthousand.com.au with the subject 'We shall dance on all the couches to this'

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Manners is a succinct demonstration of the double-edged sword of major label opportunity. Columbia's backing has allowed for an album layered with Passion Pit's signature gasflare-pop sounds, full of satisfying wails and epic melodies. But it's impossible to avoid the feeling that during recording, a faceless Mr Jones was standing in, asking them to Please Calm Down, Guys, We Have To Sell This To Radio.

This is most evident on last year's breakout track 'Sleepyhead'. Then an exuberant two-and-a-half-minutes of unbridled joy, it is now a heavily sanitised production, the driving bass and raw screeches of the original rendered limp and subdued.

There's no question this is one of the best records of the year. A lot of people will dance on a lot of couches to it, and Passion Pit should follow fellow electro-poppers MGMT into the stratosphere. But it's just not the aural paroxysm of ecstasy it should have been.

By Alex Vitlin

Release: Album

To Cure: An empty dancefloor

Keywords: Columbia, Passion Pit, Manners

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