The Thousands

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.