Silversun Pickups - some rarities (2006-09)

For me, Silversun Pickup's two albums to date, Carnavas (2006), and Swoon (2009, duh) bore a couple of things in common. Both were built on a foundation of amped-out, post-Corgan guitar rawk. It's likely you've reached that very same conclusion, but as far as my earholes were concerned, these albums also left me wanting something else - more. Thankfully there were some leftovers, but you had to dig for them, even with the ubiquity of online file trading and blogs like this one.

Prior to Carnavas, and for that matter the 2005 Pikul ep, Silverlake, CA's finest sons (and daughter) assembled a four-song demo, which from what I can tell was not made commercially available. It contained a quartet of tracks that would be reworked for Carnavas and Pikul, including the 'breakout hit' "Lazy Eye."

In conjunction with the release of Carnavas, was a 7" single that came with the vinyl version of the album that included two non-lp tracks, "Table Scraps" and "Mercury." I believe these two also appeared on certain import CD versions of the album. "Mercury" was also available as a b-side to the "Future Foe Scenarios" 7", also an import from what I can gather.

Fast forward to the present year. In a very unpublicized move, certain indie stores gave away a download code to purchasers of Swoon, to access "bonus tracks." It turned out to be only one bonus track, the righteously heavy "Ne Plus Extra," which was unfortunately mixed at a righteously, ear-splittingly, over-modulated level, almost marring the song itself, save for lowering the volume beforehand (which I strongly advise). Additionally there's another Swoon extra, "Currency of Love," a bonus song to purchasers of the Itunes incarnation of the album. All tracks discussed here can be downloaded in one fell swoop below.

01. Dream at Tempo 119
02. Kissing Families
03. Booksmart Devil
04. Lazy Eye
05. Table Scraps
06. Mercury
07. Currency of Love
08. Ne Plus Ultra

1-4 2004 demos
5 & 6 from Carnavas bonus 7"
7. Swoon Itunes bonus track
8. Swoon download bonus track

Hear