From the Vaults Friday: Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted (1992)

The Year: 1992
The Album: Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted
Who It Influenced: Grandaddy, Modest Mouse, Deerhunter, Tapes n' Tapes, Los Campesinos!, Times New Viking

Once upon a time, there was Pavement. One of the most iconic combos in the whole alternative canon, Pavement were a band that seemed both underrated and overrated at once; their influence, since, seeming both understated and overstated.

Fronted by the perpetually-laconic Stephen Malkmus, the quintet were quickly crowned the kings of slackerdom; their many-short-songs working ways and penchant for sarcasm almost classic examples of underground music circa 1992. With two decade's worth of hindsight, the album resounds as a relic of its era whilst still sounding fresh; Malkmus and Spiral Stairs' klanging guitar trade-offs seemingly still untangling anew even if each half-formed 'riff' has been committed to memory.

Recent years have found Slanted and Enchanted undergoing the full classic-rock treatment; it now ensconced in the canon as one of the impeachable classics of guitar music. Whilst that seems, to me, to be overstating the case, it's amazing to see these Fall fans infiltrating the establishment; Slanted and Enchanted their infamous fourteen-song subterfuge.

• Full review: Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted
• Top 10 Alternative Starter Albums
• Matador Albums
• Interview: Spiral Stairs