Certain bands should just be required to tour every summer and then spend the fall and winter making a new album. Bands like 311, Best Coast, The Flaming Lips and Silversun Pickups, for example.
There’s just something about those acts’ poppy, mellow Rock sounds that require a summer sunset, warmth on your shoulders and flip-flops that are easy to slip off. Even the Pickups’ loudest songs, for example, have a swirly, laid-back vibe. And all the band’s songs require at least a swishing of the hips.
It makes sense, actually. Silversun Pickups come from a land full of the best sunsets, California, the birthplace of the kind of laidback attitude that the quartet seems to ooze. The Pickups flourished from the same L.A. scene that gave us Elliott Smith (post-Portland) and Beck. With the encouragement of such a tight and nourishing network, it wasn’t long before Silversun Pickups gained a little confidence and a lot of fans.
The band’s most popular song is, by far, “Lazy Eye” (if you listen to local radio station The Project, you know the song) off of 2006’s Carnavas. The Pickups are currently touring in support of their brand new album, Neck of The Woods, which is just as brilliant as anything they’ve given us so far, especially the track “Busy Bees,” with its driving drums and simple guitar patterns.
Summer may be gone, but Silversun Pickups will warm up your night.
SILVERSUN PICKUPS perform Wednesday, Dec. 5 at Bogart's in Corryville. Buy tickets, check out performance times and get venue details here.
