A first listen swifty reveals that sound-wise this album is gunning for the synth-pop and general rock crowd. The young band clearly understand the potential of both genres and the overall achievement of the album is in the way it blends these constituent elements. Synth melodies map onto backing guitars, the male voice and the female voice exhange and compliment one another, the backing vocals and percussion ensure catchiness and promote shameless bopping - in PIAR's case anyway.
Hopefully it is just the product of over-listening, but soon the album's obvious singles ("Girls Like You", "Young Blood") begin to sound tired and a little flat. They are self-consciously anthemic and a little pretencious which begins to grate. An album full of filler would easily fall at this hurdle, but the saving grace of Passive Me, Aggressive You is the songs in between the singles. Tracks like "The Sun" and "Jilted Lovers" revel in subtlety rather than pushing for the big choruses and simple song structures. They get into your subconscious, under-the-radar and their lyrics, often delivered in low-key, mantra-like chants are in a strang way haunting.
To conclude, PIAR's experiences of this debut are different from those of most reviewers. Instead of writing this album off as simply "the soundtrack to your summer," PIAR asks that you check it out for the potential hidden in the lesser known tracks. Here the real value of the album, and hopefully the longevity of the young group, can be found and it's here that the album earns its difficult fourth star.
4 unavoidable suns out of 5
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