Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994)

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is the second studio album by American indie rock band Pavement, released on February 14, 1994 by Matador Records. The album saw the band move on towards a more accessible rock sound than that of their more lo-fi debut Slanted and Enchanted and achieve moderate success with the single "Cut Your Hair". The album also saw original drummer Gary Young replaced by Steve West. It was a UK Top 20 hit upon release, although it was not so successful in the US charts.

Music and lyrics

The music on Crooked Rain has been characterized as "graft[ing] a shadow history of '60s and '70s California folk-rock and psychedelia onto the abrasive, Fall-inspired noise of their previous sound." According to Elizabeth Nelson of Pitchfork, the album's tracks "are alternately sparkling and insinuating, mournful and ominous and finally cathartic, variously evoking the desert swoon of the Flying Burrito Brothers, the swaggering two-guitar overdrive of Buffalo Springfield, and the eerie chill of jazz pioneer Dave Brubeck."

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote, "Crooked Rain strips away the hiss and fog of [Slanted], removing some of Pavement's mystery yet retaining their fractured sound and spirit. It's filled with loose ends and ragged transitions, but compared to the fuzzy, dense Slanted, Crooked Rain is direct and immediately engaging." The album makes use of guitar feedback, as well as fuzz and wah guitar effects. The album contains elements of pop music. The album also incorporates elements of country rock, making use of cowbells. Richard Cromelin of the Los Angeles Times said, "the players frame Malkmus’ vocals with music of constant invention, from soft meditations to full-out fireworks. Sometimes it’s so relaxed it nearly stops, then it’s suddenly taut and jumpy." The music has drawn comparisons to the "loopiness" of the Meat Puppets and the country folk of the Rolling Stones and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Cromelin also noted the presence of "a chirpy pop tunefulness" on the album, though not without what he said was "enough contrary abrasiveness to keep you from getting too comfortable with them."

Lyrically, NME described the album's tracks as "New York stories about coming to terms with the city and its excesses, about finding yourself in a world of drug-addled rock piggery and platitude-slinging fools and still, somehow, keeping archly calm.” According to Jim DeRogatis, writing for Chicago Sun-Times, the album's lyrics "are less important than the way Pavement uses catchy vocal harmonies to establish different moods."

Release and promotion

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was released on February 14, 1994, by Matador Records. As of 2009, the album had sold about 500,000 copies.

In 2004, Matador released Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins, a compilation containing the album in its entirety, as well outtakes and other rarities from the same era.