"Swoon"

For this post I'm going to focus on an album that I've been thoroughly impressed with lately, Silversun Pickups' "Swoon".

My friend Cameron originally showed this band to me and since I trust his musical opinion greatly I checked them out and immediately I developed an infatuation.

Their music is distinctly reminiscent of the 90s alt-rock musings put forth by Smashing Pumpkins; the guitars and even the vocals are definitely channeling that band in many ways. Hell, they also have a talented female bassist. It could be more than easy to write these gents (and lady) off as a mere Pumpkins rip-off.

Nevertheless, Silversun Pickups pay much more attention to the subtlety of highs and lows in music than Smashing Pumpkins ever did. The hard and fast guitar runs of the intro track, "There's No Secrets This Year" flow effortlessly into numbers such as the glacial "Growing Old Is Getting Old" and the slow burner "Substitution".

It's post-grunge alt-rock for those who were either too young to enjoy the prime of the genre in the mid 90s or too oblivious to care.

Jack Peñate

For this week's post, I've got to declare my love for Jack Peñate, an absolutely amazing British singer/songwriter who's been on my radar in the last few weeks. Interestingly, I first heard him on the Current while driving with my uncle (Minnesota Public Radio, 89.3, a really fantastic station).




The first comparison bound to come to mind when listening to his vocal style is Robert Smith of the Cure and while I feel that's legitimate as there's no doubt Jack counts Smith among his influences (if he doesn't he's just kidding himself), he really has his own style.

His music has elements of funk, retro pop, and soul, a good combination in my opinion. Here are some particularly great tracks of his:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Zi4AyzRC4 "Pull My Heart Away" - my favorite song of his.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQDsH3DRKo "Torn On The Platform" - a track with liberal doses of ska, good stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SfrVnYsu1c "Tonight's Today" - the first single from his newest album, "Everything Is New"

Check this guy out if you haven't heard of him already!! And I apologize for not being able to make the links to songs work directly, you'll just have to copy and paste into your URL for now until I can figure out how to make that work.

Thanks for reading!