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Pure Soundart

Bye Bye Beauty

Written by: TL on 31/03/2010 00:57:50

Another night, another debuting band for me to present to you. This time our subject is Pure Soundart, a five-piece from Switzerland, who have submitted their first LP "Bye Bye Beauty" for review. It's a record full of very, very good ideas, however, the problem is that very, very few of them are Pure Soundart's own.

And as such, this review will descend into what it must inevitably become, namely an analysis of how much Pure Soundart essentially honor/borrow/copy/rob Brand New, because not only is the sound of this record like a knock-off of "The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me", several, and I mean SEVERAL moments are also so similar to equivalent ones by Brand New that one wonders why Pure Soundart even bothered to put them out under their own name. Here are a few select examples:

In "You Won't Know", Brand New sing "Hey, hey, hey, Mr. Hangman, go get your own".

- In opener "Hello, You Are Beautiful", PS sing "Hey, hey, you're beautiful right now", while the guitar sound is so similar it will make any Brand New fan choke on his drink of choice.

In "Not The Sun", Brand New croon, "Be my babe! Be my babe!" over and over.

- In "Life Is A Crime Scene", PS croon, "Be yourself! Be yourself!" in a part that is so identical it makes that lyric seem mighty ironic.

In "Limousine", Brand New whisper, "Well I love you so much, do me a favour baby don't reply".

- In "The Ghost", PS whisper, "Honey I love so much, why can't you see I'm all alone" in exactly the same tone of voice and rhythm.

In "Jesus Christ", Brand New softly sing, "Jesus Christ I'm not scared of dying, I'm a little bit scared of what comes after".

- In "Mr. Death", PS softly sing, "Mr. Death I'm a pretty guy, so what will I look like after losing life", and really, it's more like a re-imagining than an original song

And those are just the obvious selections, but if you're not convinced yet, try googling Pure Soundart's lyric bit "life is a test and everyone gets marks" and see what comes up. I honestly, seriously, couldn't make this up, and while PS do actually manage to cram out four songs that are virtually copy-free in the middle of the album (which sound a bit like Setting The Woods On Fire or maybe Crime In Stereo), when you listen to this album, that doesn't really matter, because it feels like Brand New are constantly lurking in the corner of the room, like an elephant threatening with a lawsuit.

Whether you want to call this theft or tribute is for you to decide, but personally, I can't wrestle my mind from how much this sounds like a b-movie remake of a classic, and having listened to Brand New while writing this review for the purpose of comparison, I just don't see why you'd ever want to put this on and not immediately replace it with the real thing. It's not a flat out horrible piece of music, because as PP has pointed out in many a punk rock review, borrowing ideas from the greats is better than having no ideas at all, but really, this is too much for me to think it's okay. I'd recommend all fans, current as well as potential, of Pure Soundart, to rather go and listen to "The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me", while they wait for this band to come up with something on their own. If they write more stuff like "71199" and "Gone", then I'll take them seriously, but sandwiched between so many ripoffs, I flat out refuse.

Download: The real thing, "The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me" by Brand New
For The Fans Of: Brand New, Crime In Stereo, Setting The Woods On Fire
Listen: myspace.com/puresoundartrock

Release Date 24.02.2010
Lockjaw Records