Album: Preston School of Industry

Monsoon, Domino

Stephen Malkmus may be the most high-profile former member of the American indie institution Pavement, but with Monsoon his old colleague Scott Kannberg, aka Preston School Of Industry, has produced a work that leaves both the musicians' previous work in the shade. Much of its appeal is due to the presence of Wilco as backing band, which gives the album a more confident presence than the sometimes shaky, indecisive nature of Pavement's output. Tracks like "The Furnace Sun", "Walk of a Gurl" and "Caught in the Rain" surround Kannberg's ingenuous, aw-shucks vocal with itchy descending hooklines, jangly alt.country guitars and the subtlest of pedal steel and lead guitar decoration. "Escalation Breeds Escalation" tackles 9/11 issues with a battery of REM-ish arpeggios and twin lead guitars, while the nonchalant vocal and rolling guitar grind of "Line It Up" evokes the subversive air of tainted innocence of The Velvet Underground. The closest Kannberg comes to Pavement's shambling discordancy is the atonal lead guitar and berserk tuba which bring "Get Your Crayons Out!" to a close: still not enough, though, to disrupt the album's unexpectedly tidy progress. Recommended, even for Pavement sceptics (like me).