I always forget how hypnotic the bassline and guitar riff– married but not attached at the hip–are in the Silversun Pickups’ “Lazy Eye.” Once the mood is set, the bass line establishes a flat though nuanced thoroughfare.
This allows the lead guitar to travel along the fretboard, sometimes playing “twinsies” with the bass and other times rambling ahead. Then, the next thing you know, the melody–aggressively neutral, neither happy nor sad–doubles back on itself in wistful introspection.
Lead vocalist Brian Aubert sings in a nasal near-whisper. It’s like he knows the music is the star of the show and he’d better hush. He sounds a bit like Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame, though more androgynous.
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Thus introduced, the tune takes off like a rocket, reaching higher than the Pumpkins’ “1979,” which has a similarly hypnotic bassline.
Yes, Silversun Pickups are heirs of the alt-rock /shoe-gaze psychonauts of the 1990s. (Jesus and Mary Chain, Jane’s Addiction, take your pick.) Your comparison is as good as or better than mine.
And then there’s that technique perfected by the PIxies. Dynamics, created through the mathematical formula/artistic phenomenon known as LoudQuietLoud.
You know, start with that heartbeat, that pulse that let’s us know the song is coming to life. Then grab your listeners by the throat at the start of the tune with, say, some aggressively precise down-strokes.
Then lower the volume, start using your inside voice. The listener is lulled by a sense of peace and even starts straining to listen. They don’t want to miss that magic carpet ride of a bass-guitar duo composed of a sad, hopeful bored, artistically needful audience in mind. And don’t forget that the three-chord riff is plenty complex when you use the Golden Mean as a unit of measure.
Hyperbole? Maybe. But I saw these guys long ago at Coachella–I believe I was pregnant with my now 13-year-old son, I could tell then that the quartet was more than the sum of its parts.
If music is a road, this song is a highway that is curvy, fast and never predictable. You might pass a wheat farm, a tagged-up train station or your ex driving with their new heartthrob in a convertible, Above all, you’re not sure when you’re going to exit.
–Sarah Torribio
See more songs of the day curated by Sarah Torribio HERE
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