Adventures – Supersonic Home | Album Retrospective

Run For Cover Records

Supersonic Home, the first and only album by Pittsburgh rock band Adventures, turns ten years old today. I’ll admit part of me feels silly even sitting down to write about this record because its appeal feels entirely self-evident. It’s hard to imagine someone putting this album on in 2025 and not immediately getting swept up in its brightly colored pop-punk grandeur. Because of that, if I can get even one or two people to hit play on this record, then I’ll have done my job. 

In many ways, this is perfect rock music and an unbeatable arc for a band to have: a couple EPs, a couple splits, one full-length, and then calling it a day to let that body of work speak for itself. Granted, the members of Adventures have since found more success in other projects, which makes their discography a bit of a time capsule, but I suppose that self-contained nature is at least some of the appeal.

Just to set the table, Adventures were a five-piece rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The project began with three members of metalcore act Code Orange who obviously wanted to make slightly softer, more straight-ahead rock music. Due to the sizable overlap in members, Adventures is sometimes viewed as an offshoot of Code Orange, but other than the occasional shout here and there, it’s near impossible to hear any connection between the two. 

Despite the disparity in genres, it makes total sense to look back and see how Adventures spawned. Initially known as “Code Orange Kids” before shortening to just “Code Orange” in 2014, the members of Code Orange had been (perhaps unwittingly) thrust into the northeast scene. Even though they were making spine-crushing metallic hardcore, they also put out music on Topshelf Records and (somewhat famously) shared a four-way split with Tigers Jaw, The World Is a Beautiful Place, and Self Defense Family. This adjacency to “scene” music placed them within reach of labels like No Sleep and Run For Cover, two titans of the 2010 indie-emo sphere who wound up helping Adventures release their music. 

The band’s early EPs, 2012’s Adventures and 2013’s Clear My Head With You, were centered around moody melodies and Reba Meyers’ despondent wail. The lyrics were surprisingly emo, expressing feelings of inadequacy and adolescent frustration. Occasionally, things would peak in a scream or a slow-bobbing breakdown, but for the most part, these were very emotional and overwrought songs, slathered in a solid layer or two of grungy distortion. 

By 2014, Adventures were moving a bit more strategically, shifting labels, partnering with peers, and staking out a sound right at the peak of the “soft grunge” explosion. At the beginning of the year, a split with Run Forever marked the group’s final output on No Sleep. By October, a split between Adventures and Pity Sex instantly solidified the group as part of Run For Cover’s Shoegaze Canon, something I could really only place in retrospect. 

In February of 2015, Adventures released Supersonic Home onto the world, offering a ten-track exploration of the interpersonal that still sounds as fresh today as it did ten years ago. When I was still a dumbass 21-year-old emo (as opposed to a dumbass 31-year-old emo), the band that Adventures reminded me of most was Tigers Jaw, specifically any key-board-heavy song where Brianna would take lead vocals. Today, I hear a lot more second-wave emo in these sounds, with clear nods to early Jimmy Eat World and (perhaps imagined) evocations of bands like Saves The Day, The Get Up Kids, and The Promise Ring. 

In contrast to their early EPs and splits, Supersonic Home moved into a much less angsty territory. The music was still as open-hearted and confessional as those early songs, but the choruses were sharper, and the instrumentals were more driving and muscular. While Reba Meyers was still the primary singer, vocals were now much more of a shared effort, with Kimi Hanauer clearly coming into her own in the few years since their first output. Together, their vocals entwined over upbeat instrumentals that sit somewhere between 90s alt-rock and modern pop-punk. This was baggy shirt, flannel-clad rock shit for sure, but it also feels like music made to be held on a compact disc. 

If you want an ideal setting for a listen of Supersonic Home, I recommend waiting for the first sunny day of the year and going for a walk with this playing on your headphones. Maybe it’s just due to its February release, but I’ll always associate this album with the beginning of the year, often reserving it for one of those first days you can wear shorts (or at least shed your jacket). There’s nothing quite like stretching your legs, feeling the sun on your skin, and letting the sounds of Supersonic Home flow through you. I genuinely feel fortunate that this has been something I’ve been able to return to year after year for the last decade without tiring. 

From second one, it’s impossible not to get wrapped up in that opening drum roll on “Dream Blue Haze.” After four minutes of building and building, how can you not want to belt along “Your Sweetness” by the time that final refrain rolls around? 

Looking at the lyrics for a song like “Heavenly,” it’s amazing how far the band can go off so little. The verse is literally ten words, yet the outpouring at the end of the song when Meyers belts “He’s a swarm / he’s a swarm / I am unforgiven” is as hard-hitting as any breakdown Code Orange ever concocted. 

I could name practically any track off this album and burrow into its brilliance: the awestruck “Longhair,” the charged-up “Absolution, Warmth Required,” the bouncy closing title track. Throughout every one of these songs, the band casts an energetic blue-tinted spell on the listener, whisking them away into a hand-crafted, watercolored world like the one seen on the cover or in their music videos. Throughout it all, Reba and Kimi maintain a beautiful interplay, trading vocals, harmonizing, and adding a soft compassion to every song that bounces off the punky guitars beautifully. 

While part of me is sad that we never got anything more from this project, the collective hour of music we got from it is worth it. Probably for the best that the band didn’t keep returning to the well and diluting it with redundant music and touring, after all, their day job in Code Orange was calling the entire time. I guess what I’m saying is sometimes it’s better to know when to throw in the towel and put a period at the end of everything. To that end, I’ll leave you with the Wikipedia description of their vague-at-best ending, which never fails to make me laugh.

The Enduring Life of the Burnout 3 Soundtrack

Twenty years ago, on September 8th, 2004, Burnout 3: Takedown was released on the sixth generation of consoles. Burnout 3 is an arcadey racing game designed around boosting, driving as fast as possible, and knocking opponents off the road as you race towards the finish line. In its purest moments, you’d find yourself flying down busy streets at triple-digit speeds, trading paint with other racers, sparks flying as you attempt to smash them into walls, pillars, and oncoming cars. Not only is Burnout 3 one of my favorite games of all time, but it also has one of the most formative soundtracks of my entire life, filled with infectious pop-punk and early-aughts shredding. 

Depending on what kind of household you grew up in, a new video game was a big deal. In my family, a new video game was a special occasion typically reserved for birthdays, holidays, or months of scraping together hard-earned allowance money. Maybe that’s why, when my mom purchased Burnout 3 for me on a whim in 2005, it has stuck with me to this day.

When you’re in middle school (as I was in 2005), a new game is worth its weight in gold, and a good new game is worth the world. In the summer of 2005, I was only 12 years old with two younger brothers who were still in elementary school, so I wasn’t allowed to own Halo, Grand Theft Auto, or any other “Mature” games. Luckily, Burnout 3 was only rated “Teen” due to “mild violence and mild language,” two asterisks my mom could apparently get behind. The game was also a year old at that point, so it was also probably discounted to hell, which didn’t hurt. 

I still remember this purchase because it was so unexpected. I asked my mom if I could buy a used copy of the game, fully expecting a ‘no’ as the answer, but even then I knew shooters had to shoot their shot. Much to my surprise, she responded with, “Sure, why not?” and bought the game on the spot while we were out running errands. I carried the case home, placed the disc gently in my Xbox, and my life was never the same. 

Not only is Burnout 3 a great game, but it’s a great game with a great soundtrack. My music taste at that time centered almost exclusively around my dad’s music or stuff I had picked up from friends. That meant lots of AC/DC, Aerosmith, Zeppelin, and Foo Fighters. That was all well and good, but on the cusp of my rebellious teenage years, I was looking for something to make my taste my own, and I found that in Burnout 3.

When you boot up Burnout 3, you’re greeted by a series of logos followed by a montage of car-smashing gameplay set to The F-Ups’ snotty pop-punk anthem “Lazy Generation.” As my pre-teen brain absorbed the flashy visuals of speeding cars and the immensely catchy chorus, something inside me clicked. This shit ruled.

After the intro, I proceeded to the main menu and finally took control of a car as I played through the game’s tutorial. Soon, the sounds of No Motiv’s “Independence Day” blared from the speakers of my TV as I sped down the streets of some wooded Californian town. My blood pumped, my pupils dilated, and my brain was on fire with dopamine, all while high-energy pop-punk scored the scene. 

Years later, I look back on Burnout 3 as an oddly formative discovery in my musical history. That soundtrack – while very frosted-tips, chain wallet, mid-aughts – led me to a genre of music that I didn’t even know the name of at the time. By the time I was in high school, I’d come to consciously conceive of what “pop-punk” was, but by that point, the genre had all but fallen out of favor in popular culture. Before I knew about subgenres, my pre-teen brain could barely grasp the connection between these songs, other than the fact that they were fast-paced and made me want to drive a digital supercar like an absolute hellion. 

Even now, two decades later, I still revere many of these bands on a very genuine level. I mean, who can say no to Jimmy Eat World and New Found Glory? I still go absolutely bonkers for “C’mon C’mon,” “Hot Night Crash,” and “Saccharine Smile,” all songs I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for this game. This soundtrack also gave me my first brush with scene-shaping bands like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Yellow Card, and From First To Last. 

Listing these groups out in 2024, it’s almost impossible to conceive of any piece of media where they’d all fit together. You’ve got Franz Ferdinand, Motion City Soundtrack, and Rise Against, all of which are spun by Stryker, the game’s in-universe DJ who comments on races from the comfort of his studio at Crash FM. While this feature of “in-universe DJ” would be adopted in countless future games (usually to more annoying degrees), it gave the world of Burnout some sense of believability and treated these songs with more reverence than just another thing that would play during a race. Framing the songs through this omnipresent disc jockey made it feel like they were being played intentionally by a real person, or at least that’s how it felt to my dumb little 12-year-old brain.

It's worth noting that Burnout 3 wasn’t just pop-punk; you had some harder metalcore stuff like Atreyu, straight-up punk like The Bouncing Souls, legacy bands like the Ramones, and at least a few bands from the UK scene like The Futureheads. There is also a surprising amount of Vagrant Records representation from groups like No Motiv and Reggie And The Full Effect, but my adoration for those bands and that label is another post entirely. 

Two decades down the line, I’ll still boot up Burnout 3 once in a while whenever I have access to the old Xbox 360 at my parent's house back in Portland. Ironically, because of music licensing, the game isn’t backward compatible with current consoles, meaning the only way to play it is on the original hardware or (at best) a decade-old Xbox 360. As a result, Burnout 3 is left to be eclipsed by its more accessible sequels, Burnout Revenge and Burnout Paradise. While those games probably served a similar purpose to people a few years younger than me, Burnout 3 will always be “my” Burnout of choice, and even though it’s a bit harder to play, luckily, I can always throw the soundtrack on and relive the glory days of Takedowns and spectacular crashes.

Self Defense Family – Try Me | Album Retrospective

Deathwish Inc.

“Children are gonna be pissed by this, but… yelling ‘all the dumb cunts they get what they want’ for a long time… it’s hard for me to even listen to.”

“It should thrill you!”

When people say “band X or album Y” changed their life, it’s easy to be skeptical. Not because it’s impossible to believe that a piece of music could do that, but it is a lofty claim that gets thrown around so much that it’s become its own meme. I’m sure the critical-yet-charismatic Patrick Kindlon would dislike me saying so, but Self Defense Family’s 2014 album Try Me is one of those life-changing albums for me. The album celebrated its tenth anniversary back in January, and it felt crucial for me to look back on it, given the indisputable impact it had on my 18-year-old brain.

A brief history: Self Defense Family was once called End Of A Year and first formed under that name in New York in 2003. That first iteration of the band released one demo, three albums, and a prolific amount of EPs and singles starting in 2004. In 2011, they briefly rebranded as the verbose “End Of A Year Self Defense Family” before finally landing on just Self Defense Family before the year was over. This change, alongside finding a new home at legendary punk label Deathwish Inc., re-established the band as a somewhat unclassifiable alternative outfit amongst a sea of emo and post-hardcore bands of the time. To me, they are the perfect kind of musical combo: their influences are heavily worn on their sleeves (Nick Cave, Lungfish, and Silkworm, to name a few), but they don’t sound exactly like any of them, nor any of their contemporaries. The same could be said for the doom-metallic-hardcore quintet Twitching Tongues or the ever-evolving, all-angles-of-punk rockers Ceremony. 

Since becoming more “popular” (as popular as an intentionally anachronistic band can be), Self Defense has garnered a cultish, deeply devoted following, and it’s very easy to fall deep into that hole. Vocalist and lyricist Patrick Kindlon is the only constant member, joining up with a rotating cast of regulars and one-off players whenever they’re available. Because of this, the group is ripe with side projects and associated acts; Kindlon himself is perhaps even better known for Drug Church than he is for Self Defense these days, and other members have been a part of bands like Aficionado, Militarie Gun, and PONY. 

My first exposure to Kindlon was at a Drug Church show in October 2013, opening for now-defunct New Jersey emo duo Dads. They played just four songs, and the other half of the set was filled with prolonged, involved stage banter from Kindlon. I was impressionable, on the verge of a melodramatic high school breakup, and desperately seeking something against the grain that spoke to my sensibilities. That Drug Church set delivered precisely what I needed, and after diving into their music throughout the following weeks, I discovered Self Defense. At this time, they were about four months shy from the release date of their full-length debut under their new name, and I couldn’t wait to hear it.

A wonderful surprise hit just before the turn of the year when Try Me began streaming early ahead of its physical street date. It’s one of a handful of times I remember exactly the experience of hearing an album for the first time. Alone over winter break, late at night in my bedroom at my mom’s old house, taking in a collection of songs that was absolutely unlike any I’d heard before. Everything about Try Me to someone who doesn’t know the roots sounds insane, from the lo-fi production to Kindlon’s signature bark-speak vocal delivery and the repetitive nature of both. It’s also a record that caused me to Google search unfamiliar lexicon, starting with album opener and catalog hit “Tithe Pig.” I was freshly eighteen and had no fucking idea what a “tithe pig” was, or what “tithe” was for that matter. Then, there’s the second track, “Nail House Music,” where Kindlon spins multiple variations of its core lyric: “I found you in the witch elm. Who put you in the witch elm? What man dares to put his hands to me?” Again, I go, what the fuck is “the witch elm?”

On a laundry list of things I didn’t know prior to hearing this album for the first time is the album’s conceptual star, Angelique Bernstein, known publicly as Jeanna Fine. Much of the lyrics on Try Me are inspired by interviews Kindlon conducted with the former adult film actress, which are included in two 20-minute segments on the album, simply titled “Angelique One” and “Angelique Two.” Depending on whether you have the CD, streaming, or vinyl version of Try Me, these interviews appear at different moments in the tracklisting. The digital versions have them interspersed, the first after the initial five songs and the second after the final four songs. The vinyl is a double album, with one disc worth of songs and one disc worth of interviews, each disc housed in die-cut sleeves featuring high-quality pin-up portraits of Fine. 

Most of the time, I prefer the vinyl listening experience, but that’s only because nothing will match up to the very first time I listened to the album, having no idea what to expect with these pieces. I knew nothing about the album’s concept before listening, so when “Angelique One” began and I saw its runtime, I thought I was in for some post-progressive Mars Volta type shit (speaking of bands I spent a lot of time Google searching terms from). What I got was the first half of a captivating and emotional peek into a sordid life at the end of the 20th century, cutting and traumatic, bold and vulnerable.

A good time is often not the resonating feeling on a Self Defense release, whether Kindlon is singing about his own life or someone else’s. Try Me’s first single was “Turn The Fan On,” a dark lament that would probably be buried on the B-side for any other group. In a fan-filmed performance from Poland, Kindlon describes the song as simply “a bummer.” It’s an extremely tough song lyrically; the raw details are unclear, and the tone is truly unsettling: “A patch of grass outside the clinic. His wife’s at home, she’s gone ballistic. He places lips to palm, he starts crying. Finger to temple, he’s sobbing.” “Apport Birds” is about Kindlon’s dog dying, an unfortunate feeling many of us know, and he spares no grim notion about it. “It’s not like you to go without me. It must be lonely there without me. I understand the pull of religion when there’s a loss that won’t stop itching.” One song earlier, “Mistress Appears At Funeral,” which features lead vocals by frequent Self Defense collaborator Caroline Corrigan, reveals the details of an affair in humanity’s most inopportune setting. “Dressed in black, I’m ready for mourning. Show ample thigh to keep it sporty.” / “I kneel at my man, I take my time. Estate is theirs, but this is mine. Wife looks up, she finally sees unpleasant mirror, the miserable me.”

When Kindlon’s feelings aren’t masked in metaphors, they come directly and without interpretation. “Fear Of Poverty In Old Age” is the album’s prime example of this: “Feel dumb once, feel dumb again. Ring finger cut off your left hand. Ugly lisp, frustrated stammer. Wrong time again,” and the blunt chorus, “partnership is security, promise me.” The most “punk” that Try Me gets, a term Kindlon actively resents, is the 10-minute closer “Dingo Fence.” It’s a simple anthem: “Do you live nearby? Let’s go to your place now. All the dumb cocks, they get what they want. All the dumb cunts, they get what they want. All the dumb cops, they get what they want. If you’re happy, I’m happy.” Kindlon’s voice strains over the track’s duration by the end, where it culminates in a quiet coda. If basement krautrock was a subgenre, it’s Self Defense’s bag and only their bag to occupy.

The influence of Try Me on my life, my way of thinking, and my way of absorbing music cannot be overstated. It gave me a sense of identity when I had none to latch onto. It felt like Self Defense was my little secret band that only I understood after years of feeling alienated from my closest friends at the time. I actually convinced my high school journalism teacher to let me review it for the newspaper the month it was released. I went back to the same venue I saw Drug Church at just months before to see Self Defense perform with Pity Sex. I skipped my last day of Senior year to get in my friend’s band’s touring van to Bled Fest in Howell, Michigan, so I could see Self Defense again, and began the arduous process of collecting every piece of vinyl End Of A Year and Self Defense Family ever released (yes, I completed the mission). It was a fun challenge finding ways to explain to my family that “avant-garde spoken word hardcore” was my new favorite genre. 

Self Defense’s band activity has been a bit less frequent since Drug Church’s popularity has risen, and admittedly, some of the newer, singles-based SDF material doesn’t strike the same chord with me as their mid-2010s output. But that will never change how Self Defense affected me in more ways than one, and revisiting Try Me ten years later, it still has the same chokehold on me. Even as I typed out lyrics here that I’ve had memorized for a decade, or gave a close re-relisten to the emotionally gripping interview segments, or played the record at home that I’ve heard across four different turntables in six different bedrooms, Try Me remains a one-of-a-kind album that should be essential listening for those yearning for something new in their musical rotation. In Kindlon’s own words, the final three of Try Me’s liner notes: “Enjoy or don’t.”

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Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

Children Will Listen, or 20 Years of Sung Tongs

Domino

Within five minutes, I was crying. In 2018, I found myself at the Vic Theatre in Chicago, ensconced in the energy of 1,000 people, all watching two guys, freshly in their 40s, play an album they had made 15 years earlier. Nearly every piece of writing about Sung Tongs, the fifth studio release from the band we now know as Animal Collective, expounds on its sense of childlike play, its wide-eyed naïvety wielded as a torch that guides Avey Tare and Panda Bear through the forest. It’s an undeniable piece of the record; the decision to revisit it in performance over a decade later was an attempt to simultaneously flatten and enliven its impish reputation.

For a band so succinctly defined by their apparent refusal to grow up, Sung Tongs stands as the pinnacle of a narrative that threatened to swallow a far more interesting group in the quicksand. It was one thing to hear someone a few years your senior singing, “You don’t have to go to college,” like a friend’s older sibling pushing against the world’s expectations, but it’s entirely another to hear it coming from someone old enough to be your dad. It turns out their belief hadn’t been shaken by the passage of time. Instead, it had settled in as wisdom. Sung Tongs was a funhouse mirror for uncertain youth rather than an ode to childhood, leaning into mystical, almost infantile wonder without losing grasp on what is real and set in front of you by the forces beyond us.

“Visiting Friends,” the album’s diffuse centerpiece, translates the aching gaps in memory into ambient beauty, long-chewed holes dotting every inch. Bubbling up from a dark cave, frustration and anxiety sink into the guitar strums, relentless and carried by inertia. It only becomes more difficult to remember drugged-out summer days, where time could lose its meaning for an afternoon or weekend. Friends shrink to specks of dust, caught in a weary web. Dappled joy eventually burns your forearms. The bog of Dave Portner’s processed vocals, words jutting out like humid grass, echo the yearning of a kid in an aging voice. “We were visiting mine,” he repeats, atmosphere humming and crackling, trying to recall feelings of freedom, taking it to heart after all these years. It stands to reason that Wolfgang Voigt’s verdant psych-ambient was cited as a key influence, recalling a sense of wandering beneath trees of recollection and wilfully getting lost.

Sung Tongs wasn’t the first Animal Collective release I heard — it was probably the third or fourth after the seismic legacy-defining Merriweather Post Pavilion and the gorgeous, shrieking meltdown Feels — but it’s the album I’ve sung along to the most. For a long time, it was the only album I could mimic and harmonize with, alone in the car with a CD player. It was my companion on heavy-lidded commutes, occasionally hungover, knitting together a world that would enliven and encourage. Howls, chants, screams, whispers, and words collage into an indistinguishable stream, a confluence of color merging into the same great whooping river. It was instinct to become a tributary. Without diminishing the splattering influences of minimalism, campfire songs, freak folk, and even the Grateful Dead, Sung Tongs is an album centered on voices. Beyond the referential surface (titles such as “The Softest Voice” and “Mouth Wooed Her”), all it took to convince me was the transcendent melange of “Winters Love.” Four songs into the record, Portner and Lennox “pulled that boy out of a box” and made her sing. That boy wasn’t actually a boy, but the same voice emerged. 

Two howling kids from Baltimore probably weren’t the best vocal instructors, unless you were attempting to evoke strange cooing calls heard deep in the woods. Fortunately, solitude eliminated any shame or inhibition; the cracks and squeaks melted in with Avey and Panda, whether I knew how the melody started, ended, or connected between. Beyond any enjoyment of the music itself, running through another playback became an opportunity to continually discover the joy of using my vocal cords and relitigate my relationship with the sounds coming out. “Leaf House” starts with gasps and Noah Lennox’s ululation at its most elastic and ends with meows. From root to soaring branches, their voices invite the creation of a choral jungle, a three-minute warm-up before the show, and you wouldn’t dare to be left out.

An old video features all four (eventual) members of the band with obscured faces, either masked or gazing downwards, seated in a rapturous circle and howling. The desire to obfuscate everything other than the sounds they made is at its clearest. Even a decade later, unmasked and performing the album in full, “Winters Love” became an audience sing-along, filling in the gaps and layers of harmonies unattainable by a mere duo. Who needs multi-tracking when you have a thousand-strong choir at your beck and call? The entire crowd had inscribed each bark and every moan on their hearts and needed no conducting. Rapture became reality in the raising of our voices.

Three years after Sung Tongs, Animal Collective sang of believing in magic and dying on “Peacebone.” If their fatal flaw was faith in the supernatural, present or past, then we’ve all been resurrected. Flailing through first (or second) adolescence is an exercise in discovery, feeling the world around you, and making all kinds of sounds. You have to go beyond the shroud to make your way forward. Death wasn’t permanent, but the magic was.

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Aly Eleanor lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she writes, records, sends emails, and more for Ear Coffee, a DIY podcast and media “entity” that she co-founded. Her writing can be found online, underground, at home with her rats, or @purityolympics.

Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain | Album Retrospective

Matador Records

In many ways, 1994 was the culmination of more than a decade of “alternative rock,” for better and for worse. While the year brought the loss of Kurt Cobain and furthered corporate influence into a historically underground form of art, it also introduced the world to Green Day’s Dookie, Weezer’s Blue Album, Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, and countless other impactful albums. Released on Valentine’s Day of that year, Pavement’s sophomore full-length, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, also deserves a place among the year’s best records.

Upon release, the album was met with critical acclaim, with LA Times writer Richard Cromelin describing the songs as “music of constant invention” while rating the album three-and-a-half stars. Despite the appreciation from numerous outlets, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain didn’t quite break through to the mainstream, topping out at #121 on the Billboard sales charts.

While it has been generally accepted as Pavement’s most digestible album, it shouldn’t come as much of a shock that it didn’t win over the public at large. Its songs, though largely catchy, are filled with non-sequiturs, abrupt outbursts of high-energy chaos, and an artful sloppiness that is just as endearing to some as it is repelling to others. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain displays a softer touch than the band’s previous work, but Pavement made it clear they weren’t afraid to challenge listeners in some ways.

It’s telling that the album’s catchiest song and biggest hit, “Cut Your Hair,” is an overt parody of the commercial culture that had taken over rock music by the early 1990s – something that the members of Pavement were acutely aware of as constant targets for major label A&R representatives. Following their 1992 full-length debut, Slanted & Enchanted (and throughout their entire career), the band opted to remain with Matador Records rather than signing with one of the many majors courting them. The reasons behind that decision don’t matter; the important thing is it allowed Pavement to maintain creative freedom throughout their run. The band continued to walk a fine line between its pop sensibilities and some of its noisier elements, and this album has it all on full display.

The songs on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain exist on a spectrum from accessible to slightly challenging. Poppier tracks like “Range Life” and, of course, “Cut Your Hair” exist alongside more experimental songs such as “Fillmore Jive” and “5-4=Unity.” Pavement’s vast assortment of influences is on full display across the album’s 12 tracks and. In addition to some of the more obvious inspirations like The Fall or The Replacements, it’s clear that at least some members of the band had an affinity for jazz and art rock groups such as The Velvet Underground. The latter influence is particularly evident during songs like “Hit the Plane Down,” the only track on the album penned by Scott Kannberg (AKA Spiral Stairs) rather than frontman Stephen Malkmus.

One of the album’s highlights, “Gold Soundz,” is a breezy summertime jam that offers wispy vocal melodies courtesy of Malkmus. It has an immediately memorable hook, but scratch underneath the surface, and you’ll find that the song features unconventional lyrics and composition.

I keep my address to yourself 'cause we need secrets
We need secret-cret-cret-cret-crets back right now

Following the second chorus, “Gold Soundz” breaks down into an extended instrumental bridge, with a thumping back line driving a pair of jangly guitar solos that interplay and harmonize with each other for nearly a minute before Malkmus’ voice returns to belt out another of the album’s iconic lines.

So drunk in the August sun and you’re the kind of girl I like
Because you’re empty and I’m empty and you can never quarantine the past

Later on in the album, the song “Range Life” stands out. The track is perhaps best known for sparking a long-running feud between Pavement and The Smashing Pumpkins. Set off by a harmless verse poking fun at the massively popular band, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan held a grudge against Malkmus and company, continuing to take public jabs at the band in the press for years afterward.

Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins
Nature kids, I - they don’t have no function
I don’t understand what they mean and I could really give a fuck

Musically, the song displays a strong country/western influence – something that has grown popular these days but was more of a rarity in alternative rock at the time. Unlike other tracks on the album, “Range Life” features fairly basic chords and composition. The minimalism allows the vocals and lead guitar to take center stage, with Malkmus delivering earnest lyrics about the lifestyle of a touring musician. Near the end of the song, a honky-tonk piano is brought to the forefront to complement the country vibe before the band ends everything in a typically unserious fashion. The track is a fan favorite and has been played quite a bit through the ongoing Pavement reunion.

Like Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, I am a product of 1994, born just a few weeks after the album’s release. Over the course of the following 10, 15, and 20 years, I would discover the joys of bands like Green Day, Weezer, Nine Inch Nails, and many others from this era. Though I would see Pavement’s name pop up from time to time and may even have casually checked out a song or two, the band didn’t catch my full attention until more recent years.

While I’ve since had the pleasure of digging deeply into the rest of Pavement’s discography, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was the starting point for me, as I’m sure it has been for many others. The album is the perfect mix of accessibility, laid-back charm, and unique musical choices that could only be made by Pavement, acting as a stepping stone to get into the band. Swim Into The Sound’s own Taylor Grimes has written about the appeal of music that takes time to fully appreciate, and Crooked Rain offers immediate enjoyment while revealing more about itself with each repeat listen.

Good night to the rock ‘n’ roll era

While Malkmus later described these “Fillmore Jive” lyrics as tongue-in-cheek during a conversation with Rolling Stone, in many ways, his words proved to be eerily prescient. The collapse of the music industry was right around the corner, with the rise of CDs and, soon after, the advent of file-sharing programs like Napster, forcing immense change across the industry. To this day, it would be difficult to argue that the business has fully acclimated to the existence of the internet, with streaming services like Spotify continuing to deny artists their fair share. In addition to paying musicians fractions of a cent per stream, Spotify recently announced changes to the platform that will see them withhold all royalties until an artist reaches 1,000 streams.

Despite the bleak climate of the music industry, Pavement has found new life in recent years. The track “Harness Your Hopes,” a B-side off 1997’s Brighten The Corners, picked up steam on Tik-Tok, introducing a new generation to the notorious slacker-rockers and turning hordes of them into fans in the process. Additionally, the band has had a clear impact on artists that followed in their wake, such as Kurt Vile, Parquet Courts, and MJ Lenderman.

After breaking up in 1999 and reuniting briefly in 2010, Pavement announced that they would be touring again in 2019. Their return was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the band played shows throughout 2022 and 2023. This spring, Pavement will head to South America to complete a run of shows, and following that, their future remains uncertain. It might be too much to expect any new music, and it’s unclear if they intend to continue at all. Still, it’s been a pleasure to see the band return to play for original fans and the next generation, with plenty of songs from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain continuing to fill out the band’s set.

Despite its age, I don’t believe the appreciation for Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is rooted in nostalgia. The album sounds as fresh and invigorating today as I imagine it did upon release, and it’s not hard to envision the kind of success it would see if it came out today rather than in 1994. 

Like all the best records, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain offers something different on every track while still maintaining enough musical continuity to tie everything together. It’s an album of dualities. There is the blend of familiar pop sensibilities with something a little stranger and more chaotic, similar in theory to what Nirvana had accomplished in the years prior but in a very different manner. On top of that, Malkmus nails the art of balancing earnestness with his trademark wit. 

The combination of these factors helps the album stand out, but being interesting doesn’t automatically make something truly great. The songs have to be good and stand the test of time, and they absolutely do here. From the playful opening notes of “Silence Kid” to the cathartic outro in “Fillmore Jive,” Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is thoroughly engaging. Fitting of its Valentine’s Day release date, it’s an easy record to fall in love with. Thirty years after Pavement unleashed their sophomore album upon the world, it’s still winning over new listeners and will continue to do so. 

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Nick Miller is a freelance writer from Ypsilanti, Michigan, primarily writing about the world of professional wrestling. He also enjoys playing music, reading, tabletop RPGs, and logging Letterboxd entries (AKA watching movies). You can find him on X at @nickmiller4321 or on Instagram at @nickmiller5678.