Silversun Pickups – Swoon

I Love the ’90s!

Swoon’s opening track, “There’s No Secrets This Year,” wops you over the head with a sack full of Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins nostalgia. And you are very quick to reply “Thank you, sir. May I have another?” It’s the album you wish the Pumpkins were making these days instead of whatever the hell they’re doing. I can imagine there are youngsters who will hear Swoon and have a similar experience to mine back in ‘92. Siamese Dream was the album I was waiting to hear but didn’t know it. Swoon, like Siamese Dream, indulges in guitars slathered with broad texturized distortion, droning quiet lulls, drastic dynamics and the drums are not shy to fills that run up the snare like on “Geek USA.”

Now, let’s not get crazy here. The Pickups are not the Pumpkins, although they “have the same initials.” The Pickups have the musical intuition to delineate themselves enough from their influences to declare a maiden voyage for their sound. On the end of the first track, singer/vocalist Brian Aubert warns you, “Better be sure to look closely,” before you write them off as I Love the ’90s hacks. The songwriting and evolution of the band places “Lazy Eye” in the “Creep” category (“Creep” category is when you think a band will be a one hit wonder and the follow it up with an amazing album). Swoon also has many moments of poppy lifting post-shoegazing hooks that are synonymous with M83 and can be most noticed on the track “Sort Of.”

The energy and aesthetic of the album is very necessary for the time. As bands such as Band of Horses, Death Cab for Cutie and Fleet Foxes are sucking the masculinity out of rock, Swoon flexes some muscle and gives us a sound for sore ears. The album proves you can wear your heart on your sleeve while exerting some unreasonable aggression. The aggression is a result of what Aubert says, “sounds like a nervous breakdown.” With songs entitled “Panic Switch,” “Draining” and “Growing Old is Getting Old,” the apparent theme is certainly a breakdown and exactly what the breakdown is about is given to the listener in fragments. On “Surrounded” Aubert asks, “Is it perfect in a little hell?” Sounds like someone trying to synthesize happiness and failing.

Swoon’s flaw is that Silversun Pickups haven’t quite demonstrated their ability to maintain their necessity in the slow, dreamy, ethereal songs. But this is a minor complaint. When I heard that NME gave this record a 9/10, I wanted to find everything wrong with it as a personal challenge. However, I found little and I almost completely agree with NME’s Pete Cashmore’s review. I’d say Swoon is the best album of the first third of 2009.

Tagged as: Los Angeles, Rock

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