Matador release Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal, an exhaustive 45-track reissue of the band’s much-loved fifth and final album. The new special edition compiles the remastered original album, B-sides, home demos, rehearsal tapes, era-appropriate live recordings, and even the rough tracks from Pavement’s scrapped session at Sonic Youth’s Echo Canyon studio. Altogether, it features 28 unreleased tracks. Originally released in 1999, Terror Twilight marked a departure from Pavement’s established operating methods. Which is to say that it was recorded with a big-time producer in an expensive studio. However, for all the talk of “polish” and “precision” it’s still very much a Pavement record. And a great one. Like every Pavement album that preceded it, Terror Twilight thrills and confounds. Often at the same time. Twenty-two years on, the songs remain moody, strange, and eminently deserving of re-celebration. The 4xLP and 2xCD editions will include a book with never-before-seen photos and commentary/context from band members Mark Ibold, Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, Spiral Stairs, and Steve West as well as producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck).

Terror Twilight was the last album from Pavement. It seems fitting that a band that encapsulates the ’90s should bow out in the year 1999. The production is the slickest of any of their albums which follows the direction their albums were heading in over the years. Just like its predecessor, you can hear subtle influences from other sounds that had become mainstream since Pavement’s inception, including Britpop. Terror Twilight is melodic, catchy and as always Malkmus’ lyrics are witty, idiosyncratic and sometimes surreal – never predictable and often hard to decipher. Malkmus’ guitar-playing is as infectious as his singing.    FFO: Guided By Voices, Beck, Beat Happening, Liz Phair.

By Martha