Artist Silversun Pickups

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Silversun Pickups

When his band played a secret show with Metallica at South By Southwest in 2009, Silversun Pickups frontman Brian Aubert looked genuinely stunned by his band's good fortune. He thanked the crowd profusely, saying he couldn't believe he was onstage flanked by the metal titans' gear. Even though their 2006 breakthrough, Carnavas, seemingly came out of nowhere, Silversun Pickups had been playing for six years before gaining a toehold in the mainstream—a position they look to bolster with their latest, last year’s Swoon. Like its predecessor, Swoon revels in the atmospherics of '90s alternarock, but also shows the band evolving past the rote Smashing Pumpkins comparisons that greeted it initially.

Updated 02/17/2010