Gig review: Silversun Pickups

Published on Thursday 2 July 2009 18:57

SILVERSUN PICKUPS *** ORAN MOR, GLASGOW

ON RECORD, LA's Silversun Pickups sound like the schmindiest of indie bands – a pale imitation of a middling US alternative band from the early Nineties, complete with fine-featured frontman and mandatory female bass player for the indie boys to drool over.

Smashing Pumpkins come most readily to mind, as distorted guitars are high on the agenda and because singer Brian Aubert's high voice can lapse into the same unfortunate whiny tendencies as Billy Corgan's.

Thankfully, it is a different story when they play live – one with powerhouse drumming, fuzz bass, impassioned vocals and much more bite.

The sound is far heavier, even ferocious, in keeping with a band whose tracks appear on video game soundtracks, including Guitar Hero.

The wall-of-guitars approach might explain why Silversun Pickups are an emerging crossover success story – the audience certainly greeted them like the second coming of the Pixies. However, they are still wholly derivative and quickly started to sound repetitive.

Even at his most fired-up, Aubert still sang like a girl, but his dulcet vocal interplay with bassist Nikki Monninger created one of the gig's high points and a much-needed change of dynamic. He won favour with the crowd for his Buckfast survival stories, but the one sure-fire way to keep the front rows moshing was to crank up the volume.

They brought their set to a feisty finish, before returning to the stage to deliver fan favourite Lazy Eye, which meekly follows the prevailing rock trend for churning out indifferent verses whose only purpose seems to be to mark time until they can kick off in the chorus.

Yet again, the formula had the desired effect. Efficient but unoriginal. Job done.