Silversun Pickups
hold
Smashing Pumpkins
as close to their heart as, say,
Mudhoney
the Stooges
-- perhaps even more, as
(whose very initials are the same as the
Pumpkins
') don't attempt synthesis or reimagination, they merely seek continuance, acting as though nothing happened between
Siamese Dream
in 1993 and
Swoon
in 2009. Try as they may, the bandmembers cannot deny the passage of time, or their geography, for
are creatures of their time and place, just as their idols were. At their core,
the Pumpkins
were Midwestern misfits, something that was evident in their very appearance and sound, something that could be heard in
Jimmy Chamberlin
's thundering backbeat, the skyscraping guitars of
Billy Corgan
and
James Iha
, and, especially,
Corgan
's outcast wail, producing a sound that found beauty in ugliness and vice-versa. In stark contrast,
are nothing but pretty, shimmering sweetly on the surface, a sound suited for Los Angeles.
avoid unpleasantness to such a great extent on
that they rarely shift tempos or dynamics. They merely wallow in washes of sound, deriving equally from guitars and whispered vocals, never pushing forward, never achieving any sense of momentum, just glimmering in the sunlight. It's pleasant enough, particularly when the breathy vocals fade away to leave behind cascades of guitars, but even at its best, it's nothing more than an approximation of
at their peak, with all the interesting parts stripped away. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine