Preston School of Industry 'Monsoon' (Domino) Released 16/02/04

Preston School of Industry; song titles like ‘If The Straits of Magellan Should Ever Run Dry’; ‘Escalation Breeds Escalation’. Detuned guitar, not-quite-solos, quietly making a radio-friendly alt-country tune just a little too unfriendly. Scott Kannberg née Spiral Stairs, ex-of Pavement, sure don’t want what success he really should have with this album.

The less jaded would make this a smash, a middling review in Q, a few daytime plays on Radio Two. When this sounds like Pavement (the re-working of ‘Two States’ in ‘Get Your Crayons Out’ for example, or the fantastic ‘Line It Up’), it’s rather darling, but mostly it doesn’t, it sounds like Spiral Stairs working things out for himself/Malkmus, just doing it because he’s a ‘musician’, it’s what he does.

And then you’re frustrated – it’s easy to see him doing silly things as some kind of vindication of your love for pop music, but, really, if someone urinates talent, wouldn’t you want them to at least try and piss the highest on the wall? When the sensibilities are so often so pleasant, don’t you want him to make other people realise it? Rather than sabotage himself with the indie, lo-fi tendencies that made Pavement so inviting, as they backed themselves into the limelight? Especially when it seems more to do with shyness than awkwardness. Part of me wants Scott to be the new Randy Newman and find accidental success by writing for Disney, but even Randy had a hit.