Pavement - Brighten the corners

Pavement are growing up, their music is maturing album by album. But don’t run for the hills quite yet - they haven’t turned into (urgh) the Counting Crows or their earnest check-shirted ilk, not by a long way.

There’s a lot less of their naďvely wayward fooling around on this album, and much more reliance on conventional song structures; you know, choruses and that. This would be due to the presence of erstwhile REM producer Mitch Easter, who ensures the band’s promotion from lo-fi to at least mid-fi. Whether this is necessarily a good thing is debatable depending on you point of view; being better able to hear what’s going on has been the undoing of several bands in the past.

Recent single Stereo serves to dispel any worries with its daft lyrics (about baseball, I think) and discordant guitars that mutter and shriek by turns; it’s no Range Life or Summer Babe though. Shady Lane follows, a whimsical slice of countrified American and Pavement style. Unfortunately, that’s it for good bits for a while, the middle part of the album is mostly just ‘nice’ mid- tempo songs that slip past unnoticed except for the odd spate of shouting or a funny gee-tar solo, none of which do much.

It’s not until Embassy Row that Pavement get interesting again, and happily they stay that way. Steve Malhouse almost raps his way through the lazy Blue Hawaiian, We Are Underused is (whisper it) anthemic and (shout it) brilliant while Starlings of the Slipstream is lovely. And that’s about it.

So on this evidence, Pavement are still a wit above most of their contemporaries, but this album lacks the flashes of genius that ensure they stay that way.(7)

KS Pulaski