The Brag

Silversun Pickups
Neck Of The Woods
Dangerbird Records
**1/2

Producer Jacknife Lee has polished Silversun’s already glossy sound, unfortunately to its detriment for the most part. The distortion is so clean that it verges on mundane, and Brian Aubert’s vocals seem to be drowning in effects. Most of the album is spent waiting for the band to unleash a big distorted attack on the senses – and it just doesn’t come.

When the band gets it right though, there is magic. ‘Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings)’ is a perfect drifting electronic pop exercise worthy of M83, and ‘The Pit’, if you can ignore the unashamed New Order blueprint, is a great synth-pop song. ‘Here We Are (Chancer)’ and ‘Dots And Dashes (Enough Already)’ are drowsy, low-slung gems led by Nikki Monninger’s bass work. In the end though, it’s just not enough.

Neck of The Woods is an album full of potentially good songs, failed by a mixture of slick over-production and self-indulgence.

Rick Warner