Silversun Pickups - Kissing Families [video].

You better have watched this video before reading the rest of this entry. At least have it playing in the background. As neat as the video is, it is here purely for aesthetics. I just want to focus mainly on the song itself. Maybe also the video a little bit..

Silversun Pickups fans may notice the drumbeat in this cute little ditty is pretty much the same as the one in Lazy Eye, but nobody should bother to focus on such a detail when you have a song this nice.

Perhaps the title sounds a little incestuous, I know I sure thought that, but that should not put anyone off; ever. Brian has a fairly distinctive voice; I've lost count of the amount of times I've heard people try to insist that it's actually a female singing. Newsflash! Last time I checked, Brian is a male's name, and pretty sure the person singing in the video is not a woman. Even so, would it really matter? There are men who can do falsetto damn well, as well as those who can ruin it horribly, so go pick on them for sounding feminine, okay?

The song itself is a relatively simple piece of shoegaze fluffcake, coming from someone who dislikes the phrase 'shoegaze'. Who the fuck is the wiseass who coined THAT lame term?! But really, it's the only way to describe it when you think about it, and most bands that fit into that genre like little jigsaw pieces have that effect to whatever extent, as well as often sounding pretty as well as upbeat. What a knack they must have! Off topic...

It is not overdone, and fans of super distortion and wailing, angst filled vocals urging people to rape them will get no satisfaction here, unless you're willing to stick it out until a few minutes in for the really brief distortion that appears and fades out. Now you know why I used fluffcake. It's the only way I can describe the song fairly accurately. It's delicate and pretty, and when it's gone you're left wanting more, like people who really fucking like eating cake.

Silversun Pickups know how to write an effective song, and this is certainly a great example of such. Nikki's vocals that are often scattered in their songs are soft and offer a more feminine contrast to Brian's almost as soft, slightly breathy vocals. The bassline is also simple, but that's not to say it's bad. Simple can often equal good, and in Silversun Pickups, this is more often than not.

I do not want to hear any comparison to Smashing Pumpkins. This is a completely different band, and while there may be some influences thrown in there, there is no major comparison. Not at all. Brian and Billy sound different. Pumpkins have more distortion. Right.
Just watch the video and enjoy them for who they are, not for who they're meant to sound like but actually don't. Thank you.