Last time we heard from Michael Angelakos, he was struggling with the daily obstacles of manic depression. He opened up to various news sources about his personal life, dealing with thoughts of suicide, dependency on his wife, and how his music as Passion Pit functioned as a kind of therapy. The last song 2012’s excellent Gossamer literally repurposed death as a spiritual uplifting. Still, if you never looked into his lyrics beyond the anthemic choruses (“take a walk / take a walk”, “I get carried away”), there was nothing to suggest a darkness behind the overcaffeinated pop. However, add three years and a new lineup, and Kindred serves as a reintroduction to Passion Pit: a (slightly) more restrained, succinct album that finds Angelakos finally …show more content…
The succession on the album also feels more natural than on Gossamer and Manners, both of which had too many songs that bled into each other. Yet, on Kindred, even the weaker, less ambitious songs make up the fragile framework of the album’s order, and all ten songs help with the startling cohesion. At this point in their career, Passion Pit have perfected their candy coated anthems, and it’s easy to hear the lineage in some of the songs (“Where The Sky Hangs” comes from “Constant Conversations”, “Until We Can’t (Let’s Go)” channels “I’ll Be Alright”), but rarely do they come across as repetitions.
All that said, Kindred lacks some of the depth that Gossamer found in its parallel between lyrics and music. Here, instead of singing about turmoil and attempts at finding beauty in tragedy, Angelakos turns to prayer, acceptance and love. Nearly half the tracks are love letters to his wife, and even though it’s easy to forget in all the madness, but he’s excellent at writing songs like that. It’s a tough divide, because even though he seems to be in a much better place than ever before, sometimes the words fail to resonate as much as he’s capable