Don't know about you, but I always thought there was an inevitability about PAVEMENT re-forming. They certainly didn't seem to have squeezed the creative sponge to death and indeed 1999's 'epitaph' 'Terror Twilight' was a lush and accomplished record. Most definitely the sound of a band who'd travelled a long way from their fabled, lo-fi slacker roots of a decade earlier.
Whether the much-lauded 're-union' tour will actually generate an all-new Pavement album, of course, only time will tell, but as they kick off their world tour, it's as good a time as any for a 23-track 'Best of' affair which the extensive 'Quarantine The Past' predominantly is. As the press release cogently points out, it's a bit more than a 'greatest hits' set (such terms are relative with bands like Pavement anyway), but certainly the meat of the tunes you know and love (and there are probably more than you might imagine) are all present and correct here.
It's not a conventional 'Best of' in that it's not arranged sequentially, but that doesn't really matter. Yes, the recording quality bounces around (for example, the relatively lo-fi 'Here' follows top off-kilter pop moments 'Cut Your Hair' and 'Shady Lane') and there are some underachievers ('Mellow Jazz Docent' and 'Debris Slide', sound like Guided By Voices rejects and could both be lanced) but mostly 'Quarantine The Past' showcases Kentucky's finest wandering their own sweet way and damning the torpedoes to great effect.
So you'll already be familiar with a lot of what you get here. There's 'Stereo' with its' loping bassline, monitor-straddling Big Rock chorus and that hilarious lyric about Rush's Geddy Lee (“how did he get a voice so high?/ I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy?”). There's 'Cut Your Hair' with its' great “ooh ooh ooh ooh” sing-along bit that all great would-be hits should have. There's 'Range Life' where they make like The Byrds and indulge their Country side (even if they sound like they're regally taking the piss) and there's the wonderful loss and longing of 'Spit On a Stranger'.
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There are merely the headlines, of course, and it's to the credit of 'Quarantine The Past' that it also finds room for Pavement's less refined spews of genius. 'Here', for example, is almost a ballad by this band's standards, but it's beautifully sad and blue on its' own terms. 'Summer Babe', meanwhile, is so God damned lackadaisical it should never work, yet its' laconic bleed of a melody simply floors you, while the bizarre REM tribute 'Unseen Power of the Picket Fence' finds Messrs. Malkmus and Kannberg tuning their guitars to such a weird pitch they almost moo. And that lyric! Altogether now - “'Time After Time' was my least favourite song!”
This being Pavement, they can sail too close to the wind at times. The long-running 'Fall copyists' accusation is borne out by 'Two States' which is basically an update of The Fall's 'Guest Informant' , while it's difficult NOT to detect the Mark E. Smith school of inspired gobbledegook in obscure titles like 'Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite at:17'. However, while they also find space for blockbuster slacker pop corkers like 'Date w/IKEA', there will be space in my heart for Mr. Malkmus and his lieutenants.
So there you go. 'Quarantine The Past' is a lovingly-compiled and generous Pavement career compendium which does exactly what it says on the tin and sometimes that little bit extra. If you've been knocking around for a while you'll already know whether you want this or not, but for the new breed it's a great place to start digging.
Domino Records online
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