After 6 milligrams we're talking again
It has taken a lot, in this year of melancholy and the infinite electronique (ooooh crap I should use that for an article, shouldn't I? CUT EDIT PRINT!), for a "guitar band", a term that I hate but that a few of my UK music resources began to throw around with more distasteful frequency when WARP signed Maximo Park, to actually move me. Even Sonic Youth's subtle grower-not-a-shower of an album, Rather Ripped, was subjected to several shelved and spiteful reviews from me, before i finally accepted it on its' own, slightly softer-than-usual terms.
Then I heard the Silversun Pickups. Mostly because of a bunch of Hype, but also because I kept on hearing things thrown around that made it sounds as though this L.A. band was the long-lost love child of Kim+Thurston+Kevin (if you need last names, just don't worry about it).
What I ended up getting, in the form of their EP, Pikul, and their first full LP, Carnavas, was exactly that-the My Bloody Jesus and Sonic Hum, if you will. Amazingly well-written songs that unleash a biting fury in the form of a drone-noise aesthetic that doesn't overwhelm (so don't let the Kevin Shields association scare you off), but rather serves to enhance each song.
It's cliche, but the noise really does serve to make their stuff that much prettier.
The first song from Carnavas is a perfect introduction to what they do-the synthetics being ambushed by minor waves of noise, which later reveal themselves to be (*gasp*) processed vocals, all kicked off with what has to be a contender for date idea of the year-take some melatonin and converse...
My favorite Silversun song-the way that Brian and Nikki's voices intertwine in what's less call-and-response and more cause/effect as guitars that (yes, I'm going to say what EVERY OTHER STUPID HIPSTERFESTDOTCOM HAS SAID) sound like Siamese Dream with an astral hard-on erupt into something that's just glorious.
it’s always the same way for me blue turns soft with time broke remains, an everyday disguise ending in the same way
And the way Brian draws out the "so po....l...i...t..e.." as the song fades like twilight combines a shoegaze sense of emotional purpose with just really, really GOOD songwriting.
From the Pikul EP, and proof that you can't pin the Silversun sound down-what sounds at first like Ryan Adams after a three-day coke-and-makers jag becomes symphonic and finally cathartic. Check the restrained freak-out at around 3:20, and follow it as the whole thing slowly unravels.
it's everything that is connected and beautiful and now i know just where i stand thank god it's over...
Connected and beautiful. That's what this is to me. Eyes roll back in the head, chest heaves with a heavy, blissed-out sigh.
It's always the same way for me...
(dont let their psyche-folk album artwork freak you-stare into it. it's less beard folk and more drifting into noise-space....)
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resonator_mag) wrote,
