The thing about having a blog and no editor is I can write about all the music I love. The other thing about having a blog and no editor is probably no one reads it. But that’s okay: it’s kind of humbling. The thing about no one reading my blog is that I can take my time finding albums to review that are insanely good (or insanely bad, depending on my current irritability).

Silversun Pickups is a band from California that sort of defies the current trends in indie rock: Their name doesn’t start with ‘the’; nor does it contain tongue-in-cheek, vintage references to the 80s. And their sound isn’t classified with the words ‘post’ or ‘dance’. If anything, they kind of sound like 1994 again.

Carnavas is their new album’s name. And it sounds a lot like 1994. But in a really good way — like how you felt when you heard Siamese Dream for the first time. I’m thinking the reason it sounds like 1994 is because it’s totally drenched in Big Muff style fuzz.

Brian Aubert’s vocals are sexy and smooth and understated (and it doesn’t hurt that he kind of looks like that studly dude that Phoebe dated on Friends way back when. Mike was his name I think). Anyway, Brian Aubert’s vocals kind of bring to mind the host of alternative bands that overloaded the radio during the post-Nirvana invasion of the 90s. Except without any of the bad parts. His singing drips with melody and sort of plays twister with the band’s ninetiesesque guitar driven power-pop, as if they’re constantly trying to out-melody eachother.

The album’s one-two-three punch (“Melatonin”, “Well Thought Out Twinkles” and “Checkered Floor”) could each have been staples of alternative radio ten years ago. Their sugary melodies, layers of droning guitars and sophisticated drumming are intoxicating in heroin-addict proportions. “Waste It On” is what MBV’s Loveless would sound like all at once in slow motion right before you died.

Aubert’s voice is saccharine (like if Billy Corgan and Kevin Shields had a choir of little mulatto babies singing their songs atop a mountain of Marshall stacks and Big Muffs. Or like Colin Meloy if he stopped playing Dungeons & Dragons and going to Medieval fairs and started skateboarding and buying his clothes at Zumiez).

And Carnavas never lets up. Each minute is a new experience, each song another made-up memory of the 90s. It’s a record to fall asleep to, a record to drive fast to, a record to fall in love to, a record to write about in a blog that no one reads to.