Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pavement's best gets the treat., 27 Dec 2008
These Pavement double-disc deluxe editions that are being released by Matador every 2 years are among the best reissues that I know. The gorgeous packaging, the brilliant design work, the massive booklets stuffed with interesting liner notes and photos, and the tons of extra-tracks set a new standard to the so-called deluxe editions. Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition (love the weird sub-titles!) maintains the level.
This is my favourite Pavement album and ever since these deluxe-editions started coming out I had been waiting for its turn.
Brighten The Corners is Pavement's strongest and most consistent album. All these are good "proper" songs. There is no fooling around with thrown away ideas or silly jams. I understand that those are natural ingredients of the Pavement sound, but Wowee Zowee surely needed a bit more editing and quality control. And don't get it wrong, this is far from shinny and polished, this is still 100% low-fi indie rock as according to Pavement. The band still indulges here and there but overall things are much more in control.
Highlights include the college rock hit 'Stereo' with its bumpy bass line and explosive chorus, the catchy 'Shady Lane' and - a personal favourite and my favourite Scott Kannberg song - the chiming urgent 'Date with IKEA' with its byrdsian guitar all over. The album has a double grand finale with two slow-moving ballads 'Starlings Of The Slipstream' and 'Fin' that feature extended epic guitar abuse by Malkmus with loads of feedback and over-bent strings.
Of the 30-plus bonus tracks you can expect the usual treat. Excellent, interesting, funny, pointless, we get a bit of everything. But there are some standout tracks. The embryonic 'The Hexx', then called 'And Then', is as much powerful as it is underdeveloped. The instrumental 'Beautiful As A Batterfly', 'Westie Can Drum', 'Harness Your Hopes', 'Destroy Mater Dei', 'The Classical'.... are all great additions to this album.
The 50-page booklet features a long essay that deals more with the importance of nonsense lyrics in rock songs and, particularly, in Pavement. It's a very interesting text that runs for several pages until it arrives at Brighten The Corners just at closing time. But I miss a bit of historic context in the liner notes - the recording process, what the band was going through.
For the first time in these re-issues, there are no words by Stephen Malkmus or any of the band members or people involved on the making of the record. This brings back the idea that this album is so under-appreciated, probably even by the band - something that really puzzles me.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic, 22 May 2006
One of my favourite albums, laid back and relaxing, yet with moments of indie noise and a more `rock' feel to it, in my opinion a pretty perfect balance between the two sides, and full of some of the most irrelevant lyrics I have heard.
A perfect example is the first track, `Stereo' opening with burbling synthy noise, and a back and forth simple guitar line, leading into a quick burst of noise and the bass line of the verses, the opening lyrics being `pigs they tend to wiggle when they walk, the infrastructure rocks, and the owners hate the jocks' three completely unrelated lines together in the song, yet somehow sounding great, happy and somehow fitting, this then leading into the chorus of loud fuzzy guitars, back through another short blast of noise into the next verse, the slightly more coherent `what about the voice of Geddy Lee, how did it get so high? I wander if he speaks like an ordinary guy (I know him and he does)' which almost makes sense as one, but completely irrelevant to the rest of the song. Odd, yet very enjoyable to listen and relax to, without feeling the need to listen to a big message about humanity or politics, just sitting back and listening to some very enjoyable music. This never really detracts from the songs though, as they still flow perfectly, with some excellent guitar playing and musicianship. Which is probably one of the things I like about this band, no need to try and force a view on you or make music that has a meaning to people, but purely music to enjoy playing and listening to, but with some inventive and excellent sounding playing too.
A stunning album from an excellent band.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brightener, 19 Jan 2006
"Brighten the Corners" remains Pavement's most settled, accessable rock record, but the band doesn't eschew their musical sound or their indie roots. Rather, they just polish up the howly vocals and multilayered musical arrangements, and the result is pretty mellow and pleasant.
It starts off with the intermittently bombastic "Stereo," before shifting to the mellower "Shady Lane" and uplifted sound of "Transport is Arranged." A more raw sound enters with the fun rockers "Date with IKEA" and lighthearted "Embassy Road," while a plaintive confusion arrives with "Old to Begin." The remaining songs harken back to their indie roots, with the monotone jazziness of "Blue Hawaiian" and the weirdness of "We Are Underused" and "Passat Dream." It ends on a pretty strong note with the vaguely ominous "Fin," in which Malkmus requests, "I trust you will tell me/if I am making a fool of myself..."
"Brighten the Corners" serves to connect the lo-fi scratchiness of their early work to a more polished sound. Sure, there are some cries of "sell-out." But Pavement's sound transfers to the smooth studio sound without losing its complexity or raw magic.
The guitar riffs are as good as ever, starting and stopping one moment, and whirling around Malkmus's vocals the next; the percussion is a solid backdrop. There are also some coy beepy-bleepy snatches of mellotron, as well as what sounds like a wavery flute, giving a feeling of vague vulnerability to the lost-soul-type songs.
Malkmus will never sing in the opera, but his soulful monotone is wonderfully well-suited to the music. The songs themselves have a certain feeling of confusion, as if the world is bewildering and chaotic. "I heard what you said/the leaders are dead/now they're robbing the skies/you can hear the followers cry..."
Pavement was still in solid form in "Brighten the Corners." While it may not be the best, the mix of complex rock and thoughtful singing is enough to make it another budding classic by Pavement.
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