Silversun Pickups
Swoon

You probably haven't heard of Silversun Pickups before; they're the kind of band who have been, at least until now, resigned to strict 'support slot' status. Mind you, those support slots have been impressive, if stadium rock floats your boat - audiences at Foo Fighters, Snow Patrol, Wolfmother and Kaiser Chiefs gigs have all been 'warmed up' by the Los Angeles band.

For bands of that magnitude, you'd expect Silversun Pickups to be a balls-to-the-wall, loud-as-all-hell rock band - but that's not necessarily so. 'Swoon' is their second album, and while it's aptly-named in one respect (there's an occasionally dreamy quality to their guitar-based sound), its tendency to drag means that 'Snooze' would perhaps have been more accurate. That's the biggest problem with 'Swoon'; it's not that these songs are too long (although the majority of them are in desperate need of a clipping), they're simply not interesting.

So where does the stadium rock element come into it (the band also have two songs featured on the new edition of the 'Guitar Hero' game)? Well, some of 'Swoon''s tracks sound like Silversun Pickups have been caught in a mid-nineties timewarp, when Smashing Pumpkins ruled the alternative charts and The Breeders were the band to namedrop. Dense, well-paced riffs occasionally build to dreary climaxes masquerading as 'epic' ('The Royal We', 'Surrounded (or Spiralling)'), although there are some semi-memorable guitar licks - the warm grime of 'Substitution' injects a bit of life into proceedings towards the album's conclusion. It's too late by that point, though: the misleadingly-titled 'Swoon' is a sluggish, ordinary album by a band who could probably do better - if only they stop trying to emulate a sound that was over a decade ago.

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