Purity Ring - Another Eternity

Purity Ring are probably second only to CHVRCHES in that list of bands that literally everyone I talk about music with - from the puritanical Smiths-fan best friend over short bursts of Facebook messages (evening, Admiral) to the swathes and swathes of monsters and beyhives and whatevers I encounter online - is super enthusiastic about. I mean sure, both acts have a super-cute voice accompanying each and every track, but that's probably where the similarities end.

The Canadian pair dazzled everyone in 2012 with Shrines, even managing to chart respectably on the Billboard 200 in the process. However, if you head over to any discussion page about the band (let's use this example) you'll find a mass of complaints that what made Shrines unique has since been reduced into a poppier format, as though accessible music is the devil and forever trying to make something unlike anyone else in the world is a fruitful endeavour. I'm reminded of last year's hilarious backlash at Grimes from entitled douchebags demanding that Go, and whatever material associated with it, be scrapped, only for her to reveal a return to the drawing board and be ridiculed for it. Push Pull had that same divided reaction of superfans screaming excitedly and grumpy fedoras, so I think we can all agree that hysterical reactions to perceived "sellings out" are henceforth nonsense and to be ignored.

I'll concede that the music here sounds a lot happier: there's a shiny, optimistic feel to the piano melody opening 'Heartsigh' and what follows is merely more excitable in its outlook. Drum machines kick about and a buzzsaw of a horn punctuates the serenity of it all, and the end result is a confusing, but cheery kick-off. It gets more heavenly: there are what sound like actual harps in 'Bodyache', and an easily karaoke chorus gives the whole thing a bit of a Florence + The Machine vibe, which is clearly a good thing. The same can essentially be said of first single 'Push Pull', where Megan James' vocals take on this relaxed lilt that's more typical of a Rihanna or FKA twigs single than her usual tales about cutting open her sternum. It's not a total reduction, though: you wouldn't find Rihanna singing "A fever billowed with the wind/ And I bade the sky therein".

Romance is abound on Another Eternity - on 'Repetition', James regales "Make your way through my tears and I'll relax/ If you're the truest one I'm gonna make you a season", whilst in 'Flood on the Floor' there's a sort-of sweet (in an Edgar Allen Poe way) bridge that vows "I'll take you out and up in light/ I'll bury you good and straight and right". Maybe there isn't that much difference after all; on 'Dust Hymn' too, James takes on the form of a spider imploring her prey to "lie still along my old web".

The production is the source of much of the complaints about Push Pull and the rest of the album and I guess there're obvious differences: 'Stranger than Earth' is essentially a Drake track with a bit of an eurodance breakdown around halfway in, whilst 'Begin Again' has a rich EDM hook that takes over and instantly becomes the album's most memorable remnant. Oh boy, what a song. Calling upon tarot readings and the moon's orbit to best illustrate this sense of boundless love, the track just oozes endearing qualities with its rhythm, the calm-before-the-storm chorus, and indeed those crashing synths straight after. 'Sea Castle' has much of the same structure, really, without perhaps quite as strong a melody, whilst album-closing 'Stillness in Woe' has the sort of looping melody that would normally be sped up and serving as the backing for a Wiz Khalifa banger.

Perhaps making great pop music isn't to be sniffed at. People can moan and mourn the ridiculous pedestals they set for Shrines (because it certainly wasn't this unique game changer some make it out to be), and that's fine, but they're missing out on a hugely talented and adorable growth.

Rating: 8/10
Highlights: Begin Again; Bodyache; Stillness in Woe; Push Pull; Sea Castle
Avoid: N/A

Artwork Watch: Very good. The Exorcist remade as a folksy ruminative film on our relationship with spirituality.
Up next: Mark Ronson