Ah, fuzzy guitar. I really like how Silversun Pickups kick off Swoon<\/i>. \u201cThere\u2019s No Secrets This Year\u201d is high energy all the way through (thanks to drummer Chris Guanlao, whose playing brings to mind a pine martin on uppers), complete with a silly chorus: \u201cI\u2019ll tell you a secret \/ Let\u2019s make this perfectly clear \/ There\u2019s no secrets this year.\u201d <\/p>\n
Oh, yeah. They sound like Smashing Pumpkins, share the same initials (SP!), and also feature a female bass player. You can point this out to your friends and feel proud of yourself \u2013 might as well shamelessly pat yourself on the back for a conclusion that anyone who listened to 1990\u2019s rock radio could reach. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to skip a few tracks to talk about \u201cPanic Switch,\u201d which follows the soft verse\/loud chorus dynamic. The lyrics for the verses have brevity on their side, but that\u2019s about it: \u201cTime \/ It\u2019s never worth my time \/ Blue shine \/ Bleeds into my eyes.\u201d The best part is the lyrics for the bridge: \u201cI\u2019m waiting and fading and floating away \/ I\u2019m waiting and fading and floating away \/ I\u2019m waiting and fading and floating away \/ Waiting and fading and floating.\u201d <\/p>\n
I still have no idea why lead singer Brian Aubert or whoever is floating away, but this is a catchy-ass song. The power of Silversun Pickups is coating embarrassing lyrics with enough energy, hooks, and fuzz to make the ordeal\u2026fun. <\/p>\n
So why the hell does the band lollygag on the majority of these tracks? The answer is that they take themselves too seriously. They must believe the lyrics are powerful. <\/p>\n
But laughing at a young adult\u2019s journal is not enough for me. \u201cGrowing Old Is Getting Old\u201d is a hilarious title for a song, and it gets more pathetic from there: \u201cPressure on \/ Our hollow bones \/ And varicose \/ Suddenly \/ We decompose \/ But we\u2019re not alone \/ So we all are growing old.\u201d What isn\u2019t funny is waiting more than three minutes for the music to go anywhere. And at that point, I\u2019m not digging the energy, just wishing the band would be more self-destructive than wistful. <\/p>\n
To be fair, Aubert\u2019s vocals are somewhat moving toward the end of \u201cThe Royal We\u201d \u2013 right before the song enters its boring final minute. Again, many tracks are too long and too slow, especially when you consider that the ideas behind them have only slightly more credibility and depth than a ten-year-old lamenting death and taxes. But at least the ten-year-old has irony on his side.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a damn shame. \u201cThere\u2019s No Secrets This Year,\u201d \u201cPanic Switch,\u201d and \u201cSubstitution\u201d are solid pop songs, but Swoon<\/i> is drudgery when taken as a whole. If Silversun Pickups would be more energetic and cut down on the whining, they could be a good pop band. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":29921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8407],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-41544","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-silversun-pickups","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41544"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41544"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}