Brighten The Corners/Nicene Creeders

If you haven’t heard Pavement think creative, low-fi, indie-rock with zany lyrics and slacker style. This is a re-mastered & (very) expanded edition of what is probably Pavement’s most straight-ahead, accessible album, featuring a couple of nice B-Side gems. If you haven’t heard the original album, it’s definitely worth a listen, if you’re a diehard Pavement fan, you’ve probably already heard most of the stuff worth listening to on here, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play it.

My Picks from the original album (Tracks 1-12)
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12

Expanded-edition tracks – CD 1
*13) Raw, stripped-down, extended version of one of Pavements’ darker songs, falls apart at end
*14) Previously unreleased instrumental, classic Pavement style without the vocals and an added element of sloppiness / weird electronic noises.
15) demo of a half-developed mid-tempo song, with some band instructions spoken during track.
16) Fuzzed out guitars and bass, with some nice noisy bits towards the end.
17) Spiral Stairs vocals…jangly & meandering
18) Has a goofy/but menacing quality, lots of arpeggios up and down.
***19) Classic Pavement B-Side, totally ridiculous lyrics, nice bouncy tune
20) Kind of has a blues-rock feel to it, lots of messy guitar solos

Expanded-edition tracks – CD 2
1) Messy version of Type Slowly, with fuzzed-out slide guitars
2) stripped down & messy – maracas, drums, simple guitar, vocals, synth near end
3) FCC –FUCK AROUND at end
**4) Nice bouncy, fun B-Side, noisier towards end
5) Nice slowed down and fuzzed-out BBC live version of the Hex
6) BBC live version of track 19 from CD 1
*7) Nice Cover of the Killing Moon (Echo & The Bunnymen)
8) BBC live version of Winner of the (track 17)
9) Unreleased psych intro to Embassy Row (track # 7 on original album)
*10) Rough cut of unreleased track, low-key poppy track
11) Different version of Old to begin (track 5 off CD 1), a little more sloppy lower energy than original
12) 2nd version of roll with the wind (track 20 from CD-1) …eh
13) Cover of “Oddity” by the Clean, electro-pop, spiral stairs vocals
14) Live version of Type Slowly, nice noisy drawn-out guitar solo very “jammy”
15) Sloppy dueling guitars / screamed vocals (from KCRW live session)
16) Live messy rocker
17) Messy live jam with some goofy stereolab imitations
18) Super messy, reminds me of the Fall
19) Messy live version of Date with Ikea from Peel session
20) Nice jammed-out live version of Fin (Last track on the original album)
*21) Live version of Grave architecture, more raw and over the top than original
*22) Nice live cover of The Fall’s “The Classical”
23) For fans of Space Ghost… sloppy space ghost theme jam
24) Less sloppy / more menacing version of Space Ghost theme.