20 Years In, Silversun Pickups Continue Proving Their Artistry on “Tenterhooks”

The indie group’s most concise record to date

Emerging from the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, Silversun Pickups were the ultimate 1990s throwback, embodying a sound that’s best described as ‘Smashing Pumpkins meets My Bloody Valentine.’ The alternative rock revival of the mid-2000s was perfect timing for their inception, where playing “Lazy Eye” on Guitar Hero or noticing “Little Lover’s So Polite” on the soundtrack of Jennifer’s Body turned unsuspecting teenagers into curious fans (myself included). Beyond their success, the fact that they’ve remained quintessential ‘indie’ for their entire 20+ year career makes them legends of the indie rock genre as a whole.

Silversun Pickups’ alternative rock foundation has carried them throughout their entire career. Carnavas and Swoon embodied the group’s original fuzzy shoegaze sound, whereas Neck of the Woods and Better Nature embraced more electronic elements. Butch Vig, producer of Nirvana’s Nevermind and drummer for Garbage, has become the group’s de facto producer, streamlined the two styles together on Widows Weeds, Physical Thrills, and, now, Tenterhooks.

Most of Tenterhooks features the usual Silversun Pickups’ compositional motifs (bass grooves and offbeat drum patterns) that blend well with other tracks in the group’s canon, yet they all have their quirky twists. Waves of vibrating guitars crash down on the emotive opener, “New Wave,” carried out by one of guitarist Brian Aubert’s most soaring vocal deliveries. “The Wreckage” is the group at their most cinematic, integrating a call-and-response middle break and an atmospheric piano outro. Bassist Nikki Monninger sings lead on the poppy “Au Revoir Reservoir,” shifting between tense verses and euphoric choruses. Credit must be given to drummer Christopher Guanlao for executing urgent sixteenth-note fills and locking back in with robotic precision during “Wakey, Wakey.” This leads into a subtle pace breaker, “Witness Mark,” where Monninger’s bass line carries the track’s subdued arrangement.

Side B launches with “Thorns and All,” a steady rocker that reaches another dimension when Joe Lester’s keyboards complement Aubert’s vocalizations during the instrumental middle break. The next two tracks benefit Tenterhooks’ pacing and serve as a fresh deviation. It’s very seldom that Silversun Pickups draws back enough to go purely acoustic on record, succeeding on the Western-esque “Long Gone.” The fast-driving, Western-inspired track has an intimate, live-in-the-studio quality. Cellist Tanya Haden, who also appeared on “Kissing Families” from the group’s Pikul EP, adds a wondrous element to the track. “Running Out of Sounds” is a duet between Lester and Aubert, its beauty lying in its sparsity and supplemented horn parts. The album earned its title from a line in “Interrobang.” It features a guitar orchestra of clean acoustics and harmonized electric licks. “Hot Wired” sends the album off amidst electronic programming and big power chords. 

While Tenterhooks sounds like what listeners would expect from a Silversun Pickups album, its artwork has deep ties to the group's aesthetic. Darren Waterston, whose paintings graced the artwork for Carnavas and Swoon, returns with abstract washes of bright and moody colors on both sides of the gatefold sleeve. Some effort was put into the gold inlay that emphasizes the album title, but formatting the lyric insert into a printed inner sleeve would’ve been sufficient considering the crappy paper inner sleeve scuffed the record’s surface; these should be outlawed in modern vinyl manufacturing at this point! 

Silversun Pickups' albums are generally well-produced, and they’ve always been served well on vinyl. Levi Seitz truly maximizes the impact of the group on Tenterhooks. Nikki Monninger’s bass tone is absolutely punchy, making for an incredibly rich bottom end. Tracks like “The Wreckage” and “Hot Wired” provide great depth when the Brian Aubert’s crisp acoustic guitars underlie his crunchy electrics. Even a track as loose as “Long Gone” sounds grand when considering the layered cello parts and how the acoustic guitar is doubled and panned between the speakers. Brian and Nikki’s vocals, mostly double-tracked, have great texture when the right kind of compression is applied. The harmonies in the chorus of “Witness Mark” ebb and flow three-dimensionally; it’s total sonic ear candy! The only instance where the compression worked against the recording was the vocals on “New Wave,” which sound like they're yearning to cut through the mix but feel completely restrained. 

Tenterhooks gives longstanding Silversun Pickups fans what they come to expect out of this group, but what makes this album unique from the rest? Most of their albums run 50-60 minutes and cover 3-4 sides of vinyl. The science of ‘a 10-track album less than 40 minutes long’ is an almost perfect artform that’s rarely utilized in today’s music landscape, and they almost intentionally followed that template on Tenterhooks. Each song’s punctual arrangement snaps into the next, resulting in possibly the group’s most concise and to-the-point record to date.