Some deep meaning

Silversun Pickups

“Swoon”

Dangerbird Records

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Growth is a necessity in every corner of rock ‘n’ roll, even for local heroes not far removed from the fab dives of Silver Lake and Echo Park.

But by the time the Silversun Pickups released their 2006 full-length debut, “Carnavas,” they already had perfected their fuzzy sing-alongs for shoe-gazers, making pure indie rock as forceful as it was accessible. They were eager to please and exceptionally good at it.

For the band’s ambitious second album, “Swoon,” out just ahead of its second turn on the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival main stage this weekend, it chose not to go bigger but deeper.

Singer-guitarist Brian Aubert begins with “There’s No Secrets This Year,” a song less immediate than anything on “Carnavas,” if not exactly difficult. It stretches out across nearly six minutes of shiny guitar and a death-disco beat from Christopher Guanlao.

“Sort Of” starts like a brooding Bjork track before sliding into a driving, droning riff pattern that suggests the influence of My Bloody Valentine, though the band keeps careful control over its humming, hissing distortion effects. There is a spacey jangle to the guitar on “Growing Old Is Getting Old” and anxious strings and breathless vocals on “It’s Nice to Know You Work Alone,” which rides Nikki Monninger’s bouncy bass-rhythms.

The recurring Smashing Pumpkins comparisons still apply, beginning with Aubert’s velvety, mannered purr and wail, but only as a rough guide. The Silversun Pickups aren’t quite so rigid in sound and attitude, offering more warmth than rage on “The Royal We.”

That suggests a more apropos reference (minus the post-punk feedback) in late-’70s Lindsey Buckingham, another gifted guitarist and songwriter challenging fans with subversive new rhythms and ideas within the otherwise comfortable pop package of Fleetwood Mac. The Silversun Pickups just do it louder.

If “Swoon” isn’t quite this year’s “Tusk,” the Silversun Pickups are exploring fresh territory of their own and keeping it easy to follow. The new album closes with “Surround (or Spiraling),” as the band accelerates ever further, veering toward noise and never losing the hook or a sense of evolution.

-- Steve Appleford

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She’s not feeling sorry for herself

Ida Maria

“Fortress Round My Heart”

Upper 11 Records

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If all Ida Maria accomplished in music was writing the 2008 single “Oh My God,” she’d have one more immaculate three-minute punk raveup than most musicians pen in a lifetime. But after much blogland ado and a few rapturous, booze-sodden L.A. shows, the Norwegian finally gets her whole album “Fortress Round My Heart” on American shores this week. (Like the Silversun Pickups, she’ll also perform at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this weekend.)

If there’s anything the national mood needs right now, it’s a dervish of lusty, heartsick rock that prefers the friendship of Jack, Jim and Jose (nee Daniels, Beam and Cuervo) to the sad-panda malaise of most chart-bound female singer-songwriters.

“Oh My God” is the opening shot across the bow, but the forthrightly titled “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” is the album’s centerpiece. A jittery future jukebox staple, it’s an ode to the pleasures of dim-bulb beautiful boys but also a sly hint to the insecurities that persuade smart girls to take them home.

She makes time for more gentle numbers, like the misty empty-bed ballad “Keep Me Warm,” but the general mood is a tough pirouette -- a party album where staying out is your best defense from going home.

-- August Brown

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Thinking, and playing, big

Metric

“Fantasies”

Last Gang Records

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It might be the final line heard on Metric’s “Fantasies,” but it’s the one that most directly spells out the band’s intent. After rhythms shuffle and quake, guitars explode in and tremble out and Emily Haines directs verses that pulsate with electronics into a triumphant chorus, “We got stadium love,” she ultimately declares.

Metric doesn’t hold back on its fourth album, its first in four years. When last heard on “Live It Out,” the electro-pop quartet had perfected the art of teasing panic and desperation out of its spiked guitars and alt-rock-era synths. “Fantasies” is the sound of perseverance -- a celebration of rock ‘n’ roll tenacity despite, as Metric describes, living in a world obsessed with gold, guns and girls.

At its slightest, Metric explores the power of the song in “Gimme Sympathy,” a cut that brims with energy and sass as it slides into its multitiered chorus. Better still is the statement of independence that muscles its way out of the interstellar atmospheres of “Twilight Galaxy,” or the anxiety-conquering “Help I’m Alive,” where an industrial buzz clanks around a swirl of echoes and shivering guitars, all of it eventually imploding into pure sugar-coated sweetness.

There’s plenty of apprehension in Metric’s lyrics, but “Fantasies” isn’t about wallowing. As Haines sings, “If somebody’s got soul, you’ve got to make them move.” Metric more than gets the job done.

-- Todd Martens