Pavement
Terror Twilight

THE REVIEW

"Spit On A Stranger," the first track, made me enjoy it almost as much as "We Dance" that opened Wowee Zowee, the last great, unbeatable album that Pavement managed to conceive.
The same nonchalance, the same lazy pace, that pace that continues to be imitated here and there all over American underground, but of which only Mr. Malkmus and company are the masterminds. Are Pavement mainstream? Who cares? The album should be judged for its actual quality. In this case, there's something good even if, like in the previous Brighten The Corners, there are fillers ("Billie," "Speak, See, Remember") and outright nonsense ("Cream Of Gold"). Fortunately, there are also "Major Leagues," "The Hexx," and especially "Platform Blues" (a quirky blues that even Captain Beefheart would have liked) that even the score in injury time. "Carrot Rope" closes the album cheerfully, even if in the end there's that not entirely pleasant premonition that the thirty-eight-thousand lire spent could have been better invested.

By now, perhaps, one should expect nothing more from Pavement, except for a couple of those songs that only they know how to write. Here, there are a couple of remarkable ones; small doses capable of satisfying for a while those who, like myself, are searching everywhere for a new Slanted & Enchanted to lose their minds over.