#26
Pavement
"Slanted & Enchanted" (1992)
"Ice baby, I saw your girlfriend and she's/eating her fingers like they're just another meal/but she waits their by the levee wash/mixing ****tail with a plastic tipped cigar" So begins, "Summer Babe (Winter Version)", a three chord anti-anthem starting off Pavement's first LP, "Slanted & Enchanted". I don't have the slightest what that entire sequence of lines means, but Stephen Malkmus' use of imagery in his lyrics always brings these songs to life. Whether its nervous women mixing drinks, metal scars, or cutting angels in two, Malkmus' cryptic lyrics add another layer of haze and confusion over the already hazy, messy, loud music of Pavement's first album.
This is one of those sort of "Diamond In The Rough" albums, in that it contains some really wonderful melodies under layers of noise. The best example of a Pavement album doing that is definately "Westing by Musket & Sextant", but this is their last LP to sound so loud and raw. "Watery Domestic" (which comes included in the reissue of this album) is the last recording of theirs to take this approach-everything afterward is pretty glossy in comparison, especially their last album, in which they're basically a pop band.
Mark E. Smith hated Pavement, saying they were a complete Fall ripoff. At the time I had owned this for a year or so, and when I picked up the Fall's greatest hits, I thought "No way, Pavements much poppier, why does Mark E. Smith have his knickers in such a bunch over them?" Then I heard the track "A New Face In Hell" which Pavement utterly and completely rips off here on "Conduit for Sale!". That being said, I really don't give a s
hit, Pavement put a different spin on the classic Fall sound, and I love it.
This album I actually find the weakest of their first three. A minority opinion, from what I've heard, but there really is a good handful of filler-noise tracks on this album, preventing it from being a real classic of mine. I still feel it's the best album to get first if you want to get into Pavement. With great songs like, "Summer Babe", "Trigger Cut", "In the Mouth A Desert", "Lorettas Scars", and the wonderfully meloncholy "Here", "Slanted and Enchanted" holds enough gems to leave you wanting more. And believe me, their next two albums completely deliver on the promise held in "Slanted & Enchanted"
88/100