Brian Aubert squints, trying to make out what a determined heckler is yelling at him. "Classic rock?" he asks, hopefully. Then it dawns on him. "Show my cock?" he grins. "I can do a little bit of both."

Aubert's patience is a souvenir from his years as part of the Silverlake music scene, an incestuous Los Angeles community that spawned Elliott Smith, the Little Ones, and the Bird and the Bee. It has taken Silversun Pickups half a decade to get into a studio, but their debut album, Carnavas, is worth the wait.

Silversun Pickups offer everything you need from an indie band, and a lot you didn't think you wanted - the sublime melodies and shrieking rage of the Smashing Pumpkins burned with the droning distortion of My Bloody Valentine: thrashy rock moshing with effervescent pop.

On stage, the band's experience shows through. Aubert's Billy Corgan-like voice rushes between melancholic and murderous in the densely layered Rusted Wheel and Waste it On. His scraggly hair and beard (and his intensity) are reminiscent of Charles Manson but he hams it up like Mickey Rooney, throwing cheesy poses for photographers and lurching around the stage violently drenched in sweat.

Beside him, bassist Nikki Monninger has a fixed, scared smile, her soft voice hesitant. Keyboardist Joe Lester weaves spacey atmospherics through a jubilant Well Thought Out Twinkles, but Christopher Guanlao personifies the mood, his head a non-stop black blur as he nods to rapid-fire rhythms.

The sheer volume of the band's songs eclipses the subtle power of Aubert's lyrics, but the painful tension remains, especially in Common Reactor. A tangled tug-of-war between Lester and Aubert, it finally ends with what sounds like a rocket going off, which is fitting for a band for whom the sky is the limit.

· At The Social, Nottingham (08713 100 000), tomorrow.