MOG

Good afternoon and happy frickin Monday. I've been mysteriously hearing a lot of Silversun Pickups on local radio lately, which is good, and I can only speculate as to how long it will take before I hear a cut from their album in some car commercial, which is not good, but I'll take it where I can get it because they're a good band and they deserve any publicity they get. I just hope that they can stay off MTV for a while. Oh wait, nevermind.

Anyway, it's about time that I toss my un-ironic, non-trucker hat into the ring regarding Silversun Pickups.

I don't know when I first heard them but, like many band's I've come to adore, I read about them in Filter Magazine. What struck me first is how much Nikki Monniger looks like my girlfriend from high-school/college, though she only played bass in an indie band in my dreams. It's creepy and a little disturbing, frankly, yet thankfully not disturbing enough to exclude them from a place on my iPod. But enough about whatever that was, let's get down to brass tacks. (_brass tacks?_)

My first impressions hovered around the level of "meh";let's see: skipping drums, lots of fuzz, high, nasally vocals, check check check, they're a 21st century indie rock band alright. But like all hardy spores of secretly decent music, it burrowed into my quietest midnight thoughts and I found myself craving them after a few days, craving them like sweet, sweet candy. Candy for my ears.....Ear Candy, if you will. Something about the early Smashing Pumpkins build to celestial space rock breakdown in "Lazy Eye", the dark, raving, grown of "Future Foe Scenarios" or the Cure-like march of "Rusted Wheels" made my empty ears itch for that album. Regardless of whether or not the album has a natural arch (which it doesn't really) or whether the songs are easily mixed-up or temporarily forgotten (which they are) does nothing to negate the fact that this album is good, this band is good and if they keep it up they could be around for a while. Well let's hope so anyway. It feels like there's a slight revolution occurring in music lately, that there's more creativity in all these new little bands, less obvious genrefication and more middle fingers for the status quo, that leads me to believe that it's a good time to be a fan. I'm sure every music critic feels this way all the time but I have blinders on that shield me from most radio-friendly new bands. The elitist side of me still feels that if a band makes it onto a corporate radio station then they've obviously been diluted like so much Bud Light and fed to the masses for dollars. So needless to say I don't listen to much radio, though my blinders have short-changed me before. Luckily I heard Silversun Pickups on my own before I saw them on MTV.

Puffmagic gives "Carnavas" by Silversun Pickups 4 out of 5 Rob Gordons.