CD review: Swoon - Silversun Pickups

OUT ON THEIR OWN: Silversun Pickups sound determined to be their own band on Swoon.

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They look like the Smashing Pumpkins. They sound like the Smashing Pumpkins. Heck, they've got an attractive woman playing bass, write similarly-styled grunge-rock songs and share the same initials as Billy Corgan and the rest of his mid-90s alternative act.

Yep, Silversun Pickups - a Los Angeles band fronted by floppy-haired singer Brian Aubert - sure owe the Pumpkins a huge debt in their attempts to singlehandedly spark a grunge revolution.

Swoon is a fuzzed-out, feedback-drenched album that seems determined to broaden its horizons as the follow-up to 2006's underground hit and Pumpkins-apeing debut Carnavas.

So there are references to other mid-90s alternative rock acts, like Sonic Youth and The Pixies. It's Nice to Work Alone introduces bassist Nikki Monninger as a vocalist for the first time.

And on The Royal We and Catch and Release, a string quartet is unveiled for no apparent reason other than the quartet can afford it after the mild success of their first album.

When it works, it works well. There's No Secrets This Years is one of those anthems you can imagine igniting a music festival moshpit with those catchy drum loops and overlapping riffs, while Panic Switch twists and turns as much as the failed relationship it's supposed to be documenting.

But too many dour patches - like the directionless mess that is Sort Of, and the boring shoegazer Draining - spoil the show. There's no doubt they've got the potential to release a classic, but Swoon isn't it.

Funnily enough, the album's best track is Substitution, a mid-tempo acoustic-based rocker that sees the Silversun Pickups sounding more like the Smashing Pumpkins than ever before. Have Corgan's lawyers been told?

* What do you think of Swoon? Post your comments below.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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Bill   #5   12:51 pm Jun 11 2009

Boring overblown record! With every release since their debut "Pikul" they have had trouble produced consistent work, maybe that is where the Pumpkins ref comes from! Great singles band (in the past) but I'm bored now.

Jason   #4   07:12 pm Jun 03 2009

Yeah, I don't hear the Pumpkins resemblence either, and I'm old enough to remember when Pumpkins were riding high.

Swoon would have fit very well in 1994, but I think it actually sounds closer to the Chapel Hill bands like The Connells and Superchunk.

Peter Griffin   #3   05:47 am May 25 2009

Review after review saying sspu sounds just like smashing pumpkins. Give it a rest. If any one of these blundering commentators would hear past the vocals they would hear a completely different structure in sspu music. Comparing SSPU to smashing pumpkins is like comparing Beethoven to Bach, two HUGELY different artists who might sound the same to someone who doesn't listen beyond the obvious.

Sam A   #2   11:05 pm May 23 2009

To add to my previous comment (assuming it gets posted), the reviewer is the same reviewer who gave Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown 4 stars. Talk about high critical standards.

Sam A   #1   07:49 pm May 22 2009

BORING REVIEW. I need like, fifteen hands to be able to count how many times a reviewer has gone down the route of: "sounds like Smashing Pumpkins (and looks)...grunge revolution...bladebla"...

What about the atmosphere and the mood of the record? Whereas Carnavas was loopy in the sense that you could just ride the fuzzy guitars out on a cloud high above...Swoon feels pointed yet internally quite confusing - which is what good Shoegazer rock is all about - that creation of atmosphere and the clear sense of an emotional journey.

It's not like this a 'Loveless' or a 'Going Blank Again', but it fits a niche in between those old timer Shoegazer classics and the more progressive elements of Alternative Rock, and bar the Smashing Pumpkins...bands like that are too far and few in between.