Skip to content
Premieres

Passion Pit Go Through the Wire on ‘It’ll Be Alright’

Passion Pit

From the Daft Punkish lush keyboard beds to the helium-voiced, early-Kanye-esque backing vocals, the new song by electro-pop group Passion Pit — which will be found on their forthcoming sophomore album Gossamer, due July 24 — sounds in some ways like something that could have come out in the early aughts. But of course, it’s frontman Michael Angelakos’s pleading croon that sets it apart from the music that inspired it. It’s a lot more upbeat than “Take a Walk,” the first song the group released from the album, and, sticking true to the singer’s previous claim that his vocals are more coherent this time, “Alright”‘s dark lyrics stick out like a sore thumb when compared to the jubilation surrounding them. “I drink a drink and take a couple of more pills,” he sings at one point and “I’ve made so many messes,” at another turn, and, of course, there’s, “I won’t let you go unless I’ll be alright.”

The Boston, Massachusetts-based Passion Pit recorded the album, which follows up 2009’s Manners, in Los Angeles and New York with producer Chris Zane (Les Savy Fav, the Walkmen), and also scored guest shots for it by neo-classical composer Nico Muhly, who has worked with Grizzly Bear, Antony Hegarty, and a Swedish choir. And if there’s one thing Angelakos wants listeners to know about the album early, it’s that it’s diverse. “I just really wanted to make a collection of good songs, that kind of album that harks back to the ’90s,” he told NME, who premiered the song. “Everybody now wants new songs to sound the same and I really dislike that.”