hearsay

L.A.’s most deservedly hyped band, Silversun Pickups released their new album, Carnavas yesterday.

Now to come clean, I’m relatively new to Los Angeles. I moved here a little over a year ago and the Silversun Pickups will always have a special place in my heart. I guess I make a unique association between the band the city, mostly for the way in which their buzz seemed to blossom in the formative months (isn’t that cute?) of my stay here. They played a residency in August of last year at Spaceland. Now I knew pretty much nothing of them, but a friend of mine was curious about them and Freed had heard of them but not gotten around to checking them out. The band generously offered up spots on their guest list to me for a couple of the shows, and the whole thing just came off as too good to be true.

Turned out they weren’t only great, but they were fucking awesome. I was sold, and sent notes out to friends that “there’s this band in L.A…” I started to see them out at shows, and then at restaurants in my neighborhood (Echo Park), and finally realized that they were named after a liquour store that I pass by on my way to work every day. In many ways their were my introduction to the local “scene,” and I liked that it was more grungey than garagey, more Sparklehorsey than Chik-Chik-Chikey. And alltogether unpretentious and friendly.

Oh, but how is the actual record, you say? Can I just enjoy this moment? Fine, its muthafucking great, ok? Well anyway, they had a record release party last night at Sea Level, a record store close to me in Echo Park. The album is less moody than one would expect, and really effectively captured in the production, with little touches of melody and instrumentation hidden within each track. It is grounded by the songs they’ve been playing live for a while, particularly “Lazy Eye” and “Dream At Tempo 119,” which each give away the Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins leanings of the album. The album opener, “Melatonin” kicks things off, an up-tempo track layered with distortion. But then as you continue to listen there are also more subtle tracks like “Rusted Wheel.” The song structure is incredibly mature for a debut, and is framed by a heavy bass drum beat, and sprinkled with bass and guitar lines before developing into a calculated mess of snare drum and disjointed lyrics. It sounded great at their last show, and I think it the sleeper hit of the album. I guess the only weak element to the album are the lyrics. Coded and ambiguous, they don’t give you enough to really be more meaningful than, say, a Bush lyric.

But the depth of songs that the band has ammassed is a testament to the work that they’ve put in from years of being the local “it” band. I’m glad they’ve made such a solid footing and have finally garnered national attention for what will hopefully be a long career.

: Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye :
: Silversun Pickups – Rusted Wheel :