Silversun Pickups Album Recommendations: "Better Nature"

Album Recommendations: Better Nature

The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Silversun Pickups

[#] Better Nature (2015)

Overbaked.

Reviewed May 26, 2025

Up until recently, the Pickups have had a two-album rule: every producer gets two albums. This is why Dave Cooley's messy, organic wall of fuzz colors Carnavas and Swoon, it's why Butch Vig pushes the band to hit hard and cinematic on Widow's Weeds and Physical Thrills, and it's why Neck of the Woods has its sterile cousin, Better Nature. Talk about disappointment: as a new Silversun convert as a teen in 2015, I was fully anticipating Better Nature, and while I certainly got my listens out of it, I never fell in love with it. Worse yet: follow-up Widow's Weeds trounces it. What gives?

Again, it's all in the production. Jacknife Lee is known for big and clean, and while that works for a creepy, inhuman record like Neck of the Woods, Better Nature aims for warm and grand, and you just cannot have texture without dirt. As a result, while plenty of interesting instrumentation and huge hooks (including all four Pickups getting a vocal spot on fourth wind single "Nightlight") abound, the whole thing feels vacuum sealed, with an especially aimlessly large ending suite in the last two songs to boot. It's not that Better Nature is bad—"Cradle" sizzles in the Mojave sun, Nikki's lead on "Circadian Rhythm" is fetchingly midnight as always, and "Tapedeck" is just angularly awesome—but that there was a clear mismatch in sonic aims and producer ethos here, and that's a real shame.