The Pains of Being Pure at Heart | Cassie Ramone
Old Woollen, Leeds
17th November 2025

The C86 revivalists fizz through their cult classic debut album to mark its fifteenth anniversary

This first UK tour in over eight years for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart throws up a curious proposition: a nostalgia tour for a band who have always been profoundly nostalgic anyway. The New York outfit made their name in the late noughties with a heady, romantic and highly referential signature style of indie pop, one that took its cues from the C86 movement of the 1980s and imbued them with the sparkling, melodic energy of the art pop scene they came up in themselves, in Brooklyn. They went on to explore more expansive territory – polished shoegaze on 2011’s Belong, glittering synthpop on 2014’s Days of Abandon – but from its dreamy sound to its iconic artwork, it’s their 2009 self-titled debut that remains a sonic byword for the band as a whole.

It helps, too, that the snapshot in time that the album represents captures more than one bygone era; the Glasgow of the 1980s they so idolise on it, of The Pastels and Postcard Records, is no longer, but neither is the Brooklyn that the band wrote and recorded the LP in, lost forever to gentrification. To play it front-to-back for its fifteenth anniversary, then, is to summon up the ebullience and wide-eyed optimism of the group’s twenties, and it helps that they’ve brought that era’s original lineup of the group to Leeds tonight; by the time the Pains were touring their last album, The Echo of Pleasure, the band was comprised of frontman Kip Berman, guitarist Christoph Hochheim and a revolving cast of hired hands, but keyboardist Peggy Wang and bassist Alex Naidus are back in the fold, as was drummer Kurt Feldman earlier this year – he’s sitting this run out, though, with Brian Alvarez in to replace him.

Furthering the 2009 of it all is a stellar support set from Cassie Ramone, whose band Vivian Girls were another cult favourite Brooklyn outfit of that era; they, too, have reformed, playing their first gigs since 2019 in the U.S. just last week, but Ramone is here in support of last year’s wonderfully gauzy solo record Sweetheart. Backed only by her collaborator on that record, guitarist Dylan White, she brings the hazy 60s aesthetic of the album to life, sing-song melodies matched with haunting soundscapes to create the kind of sonic atmosphere you can get lost in – the simple, red velvet curtain backdrop, reminiscent of Twin Peaks, is fitting.

Once the Pains hit the stage, though, there’s no room for side projects or solo material; they fire straight into their debut album, gorgeous, melancholy opener Contender quickly segueing into a fizzing take on Come Saturday. Were the band ever this tight, this sharp, in 2009? Played with such gusto – particularly by Berman, who brings furious bite to his guitar lines – the record is a pure sugar rush, something that comes in contrast to the coy, bookish lyricism.

Thematically, Berman took inspiration not only from The Pastels, but their fellow Glaswegians Belle & Sebastian, too; they spin gloriously witty tales of library trysts (Young Adult Friction), extra-curricular activity between academics (The Tenure Itch) and romantic yearning refracted through religion’s prism (A Teenager in Love). At the heart of the record is the anthemic Stay Alive, a soaring paean to escaping the myriad hazards of small-town America.

With the album ripped through in such impassioned fashion, a second set quickly follows, with a clutch of rare treats for the purists. It’s a set that hints at different sides to the Pains; Ramona is moody, almost post-punk, while Belong and Heart in Your Heartbreak sound huge, reminders that this heavier, rockier live iteration of the band did once make it onto their rerecords, too. They close with a song that sonically encapsulates them perfectly; all skyward melodies, irresistible hooks and unabashed optimism.

Fittingly, the track is titled The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. “We will never die,” is the refrain, delivered by Berman with urgency and zeal. He never gave up on this band, and with the rest of the group once again matching the joy he radiates, it’s hard to shake the sense that this might be the start of a whole new chapter. Pop this perfect is difficult to repress forever.

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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart can be found at their website | Facebook | Instagram

Words by Joe Goggins: find him on X here

All photos by Jim Mumby | You can find him on Facebook and Instagram