DISClosure: Preston School Of Industry

DISClosure
CD Reviews Of A National Scale

Preston School Of Industry
All This Sounds Gas

by Benjy Eisen

Scott Kannberg (a.k.a. Spiral Stairs) spent the last decade of the past millennium in Pavement, a band he co-founded with childhood friend, Stephen Malkmus. Pavement was one of those elusive bands that received much critical attention and recognition but which never quite managed to break through commercially. The band did, however, single-handedly define “slacker-rock” and managed to attract enough of an underground following that when they unexplainably disbanded in the Summer of 2000, a collective wince could be felt across the music world. Stephen Malkmus immediately embarked on a solo career and now, just one year after Pavement’s break-up, Spiral Stairs returns with a new band, Preston School Of Industry, and a new disc — All This Sounds Gas.

A few of the songs on All This Sounds Gas were actually written for Terror Twilight, Pavement’s swan song. And it shows. Take the instant just-add-water anthem, “Whalebones” for instance, and it seems almost strange to actually hear Spiral’s voice, instead of Stephen’s. But what would-be for Pavement, now is for Preston School Of Industry. Songs like “Encyclopedic Knowledge Of” pick-up the Pavement slack, but then again, songs like “History Of The River” sound more like a suburban, clear-eyed Velvet Underground after they met the new dawn. Holding it all together is Spiral’s signature about-to-fall-apart guitar playing, which gives this disc the feeling that at any moment, things could go awry. But they don’t, and that’s good.

Lyrically, while there are possible kickbacks to Pavement’s break-up (“It’s not about misunderstanding/a feudal lord and their solo planning” Spiral sings at one point, and at another: “They played their final show of a lifetime/does it hurt you to feel this bad”) overall there’s a dark — and darkly optimistic — feel to this album. It’s about new voyages after a somewhat successful one was anchored.

Does Preston School Of Industry sound like Pavement? Sort-of … maybe … okay, probably not. But Spiral still sounds like Spiral, and, well, surely that’s something. More than anything, All This Sounds Gas sounds like a person returning to the music of his youth after an eleven-year career creating youthful music. And surely that’s refreshing. Even for a Pavement fan. (Matador)