Pavement: Terror Twilight

TERROR TWILIGHT'S penultimate track is a five and a half minute epic called 'The Hexx'. It begins with Stephen Malkmus taunting one of the swallows of Capistrano – "God installed that radar in your pointy little beak so you'd return". The musical backdrop toys languidly with the idea of discord, while Malkmus's singing as ever embodies the lost Orwellian oxymoron about weakness being strength. There's something about its misplaced confidence that is utterly infectious though – if the vocalist doesn't feel he needs a firmer grip on that note, then who are we, mere listeners, to demand such a thing?