Concrete Playground

Passion Pit are funky. I know it’s the daggiest word in the dictionary, but has anyone every invented a decent alternative? Passion Pit are funky like John Travolta, funky like the Sugarhill Gang, funky like Jamiroquai. Shall I say it one more time? Funky.

These five bearded boys from Boston met each other at music college in 2007, formed a band and named themselves after what is Hollywood slang for a drive-in cinema, a passion pit — i.e., a place where teenagers go to get it on. Their second album, Manners, consists of starry disco-pop bursting with happy-mad lyrics such as "Let this be our little secret/ No-one needs to know we're feeling/ Higher and higher and higher/ Higher and higher and higher" (cue choir of kids singing and repeating “higher”).

Each track is impeccably produced; you can’t help but wonder if these guys might have beaten MGMT and Empire of the Sun to the electro-pop punch if they had released Manners 12 months sooner, but, on the plus side, at least they haven’t been exhausted beyond Triple J airplay. This is one band that sound like they are always having a party — and everyone is invited. Join them for a jungle boogie at their Splendour sideshow at the Forum on August 2. Tickets on sale Friday, May 14.