Silversun Pickups Throw Down An Intriguing Mishmash Worth Losing Your Head Over

Silversun Pickups have definitely made a trademark out of coming to the masses with a fired up fuzzbox style of performing. Their toolkit contains the breathtaking sound of both irresistible forces and immovable objects. They enthrall with a blend of throwback and futuristic. Not to mention their lyrics are a true puzzlement. "Cannibal" springs from the jack-in the-box building steam and texture as it goes. I doubt I've heard a vocalist who revels in the gunk of her band's rock noise the way Nikki Monninger does. "Cannibal" is the lone new song off the band's forthcoming best of set "The Singles Collection". As per usual the lyrics are somewhere out in alien nation territory but don't let that stop you from inquiring within. I'd likely be venturing forth to find a language translator in order to get the gist of what Nikki's saying. It's got the quirkiness of old time poetry. The first verse sounds digestible enough, an amusing thing to say about a song called "Cannibal". So the king descends whilst his subjects howl for a feast. Perhaps a bit of the classic LSD was worked into the studio sessions on this one. Groups have carved out careers on the basis of a lasting high so it's not impossible to comprehend. Good thing Brian Aubert lays down guitar bad ass that leaves no doubt who's in charge because the second verse could only be easily made out if you're part of the Silversun Pickups inner posse. I don't say that as a bad thing. I merely advise if you don't want to spend time texting your own inner posse looking for directions on this stoned out of its gourd road map I'd divvy up my leisure time blocks elsewhere. "When they crawl onto the break, it's being gray, well away. Pull the rug howl from underneath this cannibal". (Insert sounds of nighttime crickets chirping without a single human voice to interrupt here). Uh...okay. Hail, well met, all that good stuff. Were the peasants of the peasant class as perplexed as I am right now? Track meets require solid running out of the blocks. Joe Lester, the keyboarding brains leaps off to the races which gives us precious little choice but to see if we can keep the pace. You think you're settled in for one type of listening experience until Brian's guitar, Nikki's bass, and drummer Chris Guanlo descend en masse. Now the party can really get jumping. You'll get chills at the onset of the concluding fade out. For you cinephiles out there who happen to like your leisure with a mix of both movie and music I'd let to sprinkle a scene from Morgan Freeman's Lean On Me into the pot. Remember when Crazy Joe's right hand man, played with nerves of steel by Robert Guillaume, flat out snarled to his contemporary that nobody but Joe himself knew what he was doing during the process of trying to clean up Eastside High? Joe insisted that's exactly how he likes it. The same philosophy runs deep in a Silversun Pickups record. Only the fearsome four know what they're doing and they apparently thrive on it. At no point during "Cannibal" do they get lazy, content to let the sampled beats or the featured guitar hog all the attention. You get a much more toothsome stew letting all the component parts duke it out. Silversun Pickups hand their devotees a highly rewarding nibble that's like a whacked out EKG glimpse into the pulse pounding core of their seldom drab creative process. This'll have to hold the diehards for a little while. That's fine because "Cannibal" hard to pigeonhole sense of swagger reminds us why we fell in love this band in the first place. No one can ever accuse them of not doing experimentation in the test kitchen, dropping what doesn't work, and then re-emerging to the dining hall with an aural entree worthy of the time and effort their fans exerted waiting for the triumphant crest of anticipation. "Cannibal" deserves to be devoured, crumbs and all.