Silversun Pickups: Tenterhooks

""Running out of Sounds" may be an ill-advised song title for a band celebrating the 20th anniversary of its first album; this is especially true for musicians who have treated their debut as a sacred blueprint for all the records that have followed. So give Silversun Pickups some credit: They spend their seventh album, Tenterhooks -which contains a song with the aforementioned title-circling through the same sounds they've mined for two decades, blissfully oblivious to the irony."

"Not that Silversun Pickups act as if they're middle-aged on Tenterhooks. Unlike so many rock bands with members facing their 50s, they don't embrace new fashions in a frantic attempt to remain relevant. Nor do they spend the record gazing at the past and mulling their own mortality. No, the L.A. quartet sticks to their tried and true, blending dreamy harmonies and blissed-out guitars as if no time had passed since the 1990s."

"There's one small problem: Silversun Pickups themselves weren't part of the dream of the '90s, a fact that adds to the creeping feeling of stasis on Tenterhooks. When Silversun Pickups surfaced during the great alt-rock revival of the late 2000s, their insistent rhythms and underlying sense of vigor made Carnavas, their 2006 debut, feel fresh. Over the ensuing years, their growing professionalism created a gulf between their underground inspirations and their own output."

Silversun Pickups' seventh album Tenterhooks revisits the band's established alt-rock palette without major stylistic shifts. The band avoids trend-chasing and nostalgic rumination, instead delivering dreamy harmonies and blissed-out guitars reminiscent of the 1990s. The group's origins in the late-2000s alt-rock revival made their 2006 debut Carnavas feel fresh, but increasing professionalism widened the gap between underground inspirations and the band's polished output. Longtime collaborator Butch Vig produces Tenterhooks, smoothing rough edges and integrating fuzzy riffs and candied electronics around Brian Aubert and Nikki Monninger's sighing vocals. The Vig partnership conveys a palpable ease even as the music circles familiar sounds.

Read at Pitchfork