I fell in love with the Silversun Pickups shortly after Carnavas came out. For me that album takes me back to New York City in a dingy hotel room, with an incredibly hot sexy stranger, and an ipod set on repeat. (ok replace dingy with corporate, and stranger with my husband and that’s pretty much how it went down). However, my emotional memory plays it back as the soundtrack to a torrid affair. And discovering that music, that way, was hot.

So imagine my impatience at waiting for the next installment of the Silversun legacy. Swoon does not disappoint. If you are sick of hearing their sound described as picking up where the pumpkins Gish left off, too bad. It does.  But they have also made it entirely their own. The first single, Panic Switch ebbs and flows in perfect time, riding the rails between slow moody melodies and rocking the F out. Thoughtful lyrics and driving rhythms abound on this articulate album front to back.  If you listen to it with the lights off, burning a candle, you will see your whole future in front of you (ok maybe that was the kid from Almost Famous – but it applies).

They played Coachella this year directly after Leonard Cohen and right before Paul McCartney. Lead singer Brian Aubert quipped, “I really hope you guys hang around to see McCartney, coz I just want that guy to do well”.  It was charming and surreal, as playing only a festival of this magnitude can be I’d imagine. And bass player, Nikki Monninger was a class act all the way. I was completely charmed, watching her rock out in her long summer dress. Christopher Guanlao (drums), and Joe Lester (keyboards) also bring their own energy to the stage. Guanlao especially with his serious head-banging ways. That guy, he gives me a flash-back headache from my metal days. Just thinking about it makes me pop two aspirin.

Words by Barbie Brady, photos by Matt Brady

Check out the gallery of them on stage at Coachella below.