Pavement

For ten years, Pavement's Stephen Malkmus has been rock & roll's greatest expressionist, his
work marked by an emotional clarity all the more impressive for the way it stays doggedly
fuzzy around the edges. Terror Twilight is his most direct statement of purpose ever (in
short: Things hurt, and growing up is hard, but kissing helps), and still the songs and lyrics
slide around with a decorous unpredictability, like ice on a hot stove. This is an... More >

Since I was fooled myself until I saw them live and knew every riff, I'm wondering why some believe there are no songs here. Probably the explanation is tempo. There's never that frantic hang-on-for-your-life moment when you either pay attention or embrace brain death--when you engage at gunpoint. And though the music seems stitched together rather than wound tight, it's never in any apparent danger of falling apart; it isn't riven or driven by internal contradictions. Thus, too much meaning is left up to the words. But that's not the same as the songs not being there--or as the meanings not being there either. (Grade: A-)