Silversun Pickups
Carnavas
[Dangerbird; 2006]
Given Silver Lake’s fashion-forwardness (also absurdity), it makes sense that recent grunge-on-the-runway anticipates a 1990s throwback band straight out of aforementioned L.A. hipster pocket. Silversun Pickups, named in homage to a Sunset/Silver Lake liquor store, spurn the Beach Boys and Thrills approach to California, channeling, instead, the weirder darkness of acts like Autolux. Carnavas, the band’s first full-length, comes off as something of an aural spiderweb: glinty, silvery, and vaguely treacherous. Their spidery technique for entrapping listeners is this: wrap them up in familiar noises toward which they feel more-or-less favorably and count on imminent stupor.
Carnavas scores points for constructing dreamlike aural shrouds. Those nostalgic for Smashing Pumpkins tunes of yesteryear will find them nestled inside the minutes (and there are so many minutes) of "Lazy Eye". Those desirous of music to play while gazing at Magic Eye pics will appreciate the record for its fuzzy blur; it’s possible that they’ll even find this album extremely rewarding, and find hidden, wonderful things in it, like crosses or hearts, or whatever it is Magic Eye creators are putting in their images these days.
Maybe it’s a prereq for making this sort of racket, but Silversun Pickups too often teeter into melodrama. Consider "Future Foe Scenarios", which seems like it could be about a village raising fists to heaven after plagues of something (Locusts? Boils?), dissolving into screams of "I must stop drinking". And "Common Reactor", which also winds up a screaming, terrifying display of pathos.
Unfortunately, the music fails to justify the histrionics. Songs start out exciting, drag on for too long, and/or become screaming. Lyrics seem like they’re poking fun at Corgan, or impersonating a high school version of him: compare "Rhinoceros" ("Open your eyes– to these I must lie?") and "Tempo" ("She said don’t open your eyes/ Don’t open your eyes/ And said goodnight"). Words elsewhere are wholly incomprehensible ("What was that scar situated from afar/ What was that light integrated in your mind" on "Well Thought Out Twinkles"). Other times– OK a lot of times– Brian Aubert’s emo-boy voice gets to be too much, worse than even Corgan’s barely-tolerable nasal delivery. Girl parts, offered by bassist Nikki Monninger, are welcome respite; also, she’s way cute. In the end, despite the band’s valiant and respectable effort, Carnavas ends up too unfocused, too rambly, too boring to make any lasting impressions.
Posted to Pitchfork by Rachel Khong on October 02, 2006.