Review Summary: A+ Fuzz Rock
Some time last year I was at Target for some reason, not sure what my reason was exactly, and I wandered into the music section. Whenever I go to Target I like to look at their music selection and this particular time I noticed an album with an intriguing price of $6.99. Seeing as how albums tend to run from $9.99-$18.99 I was rather excited by the prospect of such an inexpensive album. I picked it up and discovered that it was the album “Carnavas” by Silversun Pickups. I had heard the name Silversun Pickups mentioned by my local radio station but couldn’t put the name to a song, but since it was only $6.99 I decided to get it. I can happily say that this was probably the best spur of the moment purchase I’ve ever made.
The time of the year I bought “Carnavas” was really sunny and because of this the album sounds really happy and sunny to me. Let's start off with the lead single “Lazy Eye”. This is definitely an amazing song and I’m astounded that I didn’t remember having heard this on the radio before I bought the album. The song starts with a nice little guitar riff and then goes into the verse which is bouncy and just makes you want to bob your head along to it. One of my favorite things about this song is that the band change up what they’re playing so frequently but you can still tell it’s the same song all the way through. The single is a good representation of what the whole album is like, fuzzy guitars and interesting song structures that make you want to listen to the songs over and over again.
The top two songs on here would have to be “Future Foe Scenarios” and “Common Reactor”. Both of these songs showcase the singer’s unique voice really well. Aubert puts a lot of emotion into his lyrics while keeping them at the same time catchy and sing-alongable (probably not a word, but it should be…). “Future Foe Scenarios” sounds really secretive, probably due to the brooding music and the yelling of “Who do you work for baby?!?” in the chorus, while “Common Reactor” also sounds brooding but happy at the same time. The random noise at the end of “Common Reactor” is a great way to end the album but for my money it goes on for just a tad too long.
The reason this isn't a classic is because some of the tracks really don't stand out from the rest of the album like the aforementioned tracks do. "Three Seed" is a good example of this. While it is a good song it just doesn't do anything to stand out and as a result becomes an easily skippable song. Luckily the only other song that clearly suffers from this is the first song "Melatonin". Again nothing wrong with the song, it just doesn't do anything special to stand out or make you want to listen to repeatedly.
I mentioned the vocals a bit but not really the lyrics. I’m most definitely not a lyricist and so I have no idea what just about any of these songs are talking about, but despite this I have memorized every lyric and love to sing-along to it. Sometimes it’s nice to just listen to good music and good vocals and not have to understand what, exactly, is being sung about.
All in all I think this is an amazing album that anyone who enjoys this style of indie rock should listen to
