The L.A. foursome's clearest musical parentage remains the Smashing Pumpkins, whose alt-angst themes and distorted guitar swirls they faithfully replicate here. Swoon initially lives up to its title, but it does begin to feel awfully inert. Album opener ''There's No Secrets This Year,'' a tangle of urgent drum bursts and furrowed-brow melodies, builds a nice buzz. In the end, though, nothing as necessary as their heavily MTV- rotated 2006 hit ''Lazy Eye'' emerges. Instead, we are left with not so much a Pickup as a throwback: agreeable, but never truly unmissable. B–
Download This: Listen to songs from the new album on the band's MySpace
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