Somehow, I still remember exactly the first time I heard Silversun Pickups. I was making a “biking in the fall” playlist — still, to this day, one of my proudest curations — and stumbled across “Lazy Eye” after searching the internet for songs like “1979” by the Smashing Pumpkins. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had struck gold.
It’s surprising, then, that despite how enamored I was by the song, I never dived further into their discography. So when I heard that the Los Angeles indie-shoegaze band was set to release their seventh album, I decided to go all in and give them a real listen.
I was immediately unsure whether I had made the right call upon listening to the opening track of the album, “New Wave.” At first, the expansive vocals and spacey guitars feel disappointingly melodramatic and even a little corny — vaguely reminiscent of the type of dreamy rock music I used to fall asleep to at church. However, as the song progresses and the guitars build up, it starts to make more and more sense; although it takes a second to realize itself, “New Wave” is an exciting beginning to the dynamic picture that Tenterhooks paints for its listeners.
“The Wreckage” seems like a logical, yet interesting, transition into the rest of the album, using pulsating basslines and gritty percussion to keep listeners drawn in. It fades into “Au Revoir Reservoir,” one of the more interesting tracks on the album, both in its poppy, shoegazey instrumentation and the fact that it is sung entirely by Nikki Monninger.
As the album progresses, it becomes more clear what, and who, Silversun Pickups is: A product of the alt-rock revival of the 2000s, they maintain the signature, stripped-down, guitar-driven sound while also tapping into an atmospheric, shoegaze sound. And, for the most part, they play the part extremely well — their guitar riffs and instrumentals are engaging, and the songs themselves don’t feel obviously dated like one might expect from a 20-year-old band. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the album is dynamic; it carries with it a dreamy, lilting quality, especially in “Witness Mark,” which serves as a more atmospheric interlude, complete with vocal layering and delayed instruments. The ambient and almost eerie touch to the album, interwoven with a few fast-paced punk-esque guitar songs and the slower, acoustic-centered “Long Gone,” makes the album all the more interesting.
It’s obvious the album intentionally has an identity of its own, but, in this case, the album’s unity does not serve it as well as it should. Although each song differs in tone, tempo and, in some cases, instrumentation, the album itself feels almost too cohesive; it’s hard to tell at some points where one song starts and the next ends. While this can hardly be considered a flaw, the smoothness of this album edges on flatness that even the repetitive, driving riffs of “Wakey Wakey” fail to redeem. It’s almost ironic how “Running Out of Sounds” is titled, as the track serves as the greatest testament to the album’s points of mediocrity. A stripped down, ambient track, the song fails to either excite the listener, as songs like “Thorns and All” do, or even remotely build interest in the continuation of the album, as filler songs like “Wakey Wakey” do. It seems that, by the eighth track, Silversun Pickups really do begin to run out of sounds. It serves as a wakeup call: The album is an enjoyable listening experience, but none of the tracks are especially notable. Whether this is a result of the band trying to separate themselves from the feared “one-hit-wonder” title that they were close to falling into with the release of “Lazy Eye,” or whether it has to do with simply being a 20-year old band, Tenterhooks is simply a decent album with mostly decent songs. It is nothing extraordinary.
Luckily, the album ends on a good note, with the hauntingly dynamic and intense “Interrobang” followed by the energetic “Hot Wired,” which, although not quite as interesting as the previous track, serves as a solid ending. For a second-time listener of Silversun Pickups, I found myself surprised by how much I enjoyed this album. “It’s not amazing, but it’s pretty good” is what I found myself texting my friends upon listening to it, and this, I think, is an apt description. With some hits, a few misses, very decent production and a cohesive sound, Tenterhooks leaves not much to complain about.
Yaelin Hough is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, she can be reached at yhough@cornellsun.com.
