Gossamer
What started when Michael Angelakos self-recorded a Valentine’s Day EP as a gift for his girlfriend has now evolved into a Boston-based quintet with a thoroughly amazing sophomore album. “Take a Walk” picks up where Passion Pit’s praised 2009 debut, *Manners*, left off. “I’ll Be Alright” finds them at their most experimental, with hyper-edited cut-up arrangements tangling up and then unravelling to reveal an uplifting electro-pop standout.
Three difficult years in the making, Gossamer is an overwhelming album about being overwhelmed, a bold torrent of maximalist musical ideas, repressed anger, and unchecked anxiety.
Even when Michael Angelakos’ chirpy, radiant pop blinds with its cuteness, it’s hard not to respect its aplomb: On Passion Pit’s 2009 debut, Manners, Angelakos and his band of Berklee-alum gadget-fiddlers ascended to the summit of Mt. Synth-Pop, using vintage synthesizers, electronic rhythms, and Angelakos’ cartoonish…
The choruses keep returning to a plateau where the vocals stretch out, warpdriven, colours flying past and blurring into white. Pure, potent sentiment.
A little over halfway through “Carried Away,” the hyperventilating third track on Passion Pit’s hyperactive second album,…
With their sophomore release Gossamer, Passion Pit proves to be the gift that keeps on giving.
Comparable to that incredible rush one would get after ingesting an entire tube of Smarties, Passion Pit’s sophomore effort is a colorful twelve-track ode to joy.
Gossamer is true to its name: colorless and precariously thin, with precious few bright spots.
Why haven't Passion Pit had the same success as MGMT? This superb second album might be the one that makes them, writes <strong>Caroline Sullivan</strong>