Manners maketh the man

Passion Pit - Manners

The debut LP from UK music man Michael Angelakos and his band of musicians is a textbook example of where we're at with the indie / dance mash up.
Slices of dirty disco electronica sit beside the squlech squlech hook of formulaic guitar. There are echoes of Hot Chip, Puressence and even Modest Mouse throughout and the first half of the album sounds more like a reflection of what has gone before than it is a design in its own right.
The falsetto of opener Make Light is the poppier, cheekier neighbour of early Snow Patrol while Little Secrets taunts with chanting backing vocals pitched between euphoric rave and schoolyard chant.
There is a whiff of trying-to-impress that hangs around until single The Reeling comes along. A summer-sprinkled radio-friendly slowburn of a hit. This sets the tone for the remainder of the LP.
As Eyes As Candles kicks in the '80s influence of kickboomsynth and electrotwiddletwinklesprinkles becomes more confident and is joined by a lower-pitched shoegaze vocal which, with Swimming In The Flood, grows into a forceful indie/dance crescendo worthy of late night lovers.
And this is where we are for the rest of the trip. There are some interesting moments (is that Papa Smurf doing backing vocals on Sleepyhead?) but in the main this is an album which holds out the promise to soar but never really takes off, preferring to reside firmly in Harmlessly Hummable within the county of Footapshire.
It comes almost full circle with closer Seaweed Song and shows itself to be very much an album of the moment: restrained and pared back anthems for these frugal times.