Many of these sleepy, bluesy tunes teeter back in the proverbial chair — but just when you think it’s all about to topple over and crumble, howling storms of feedback upstage the very guitars that birthed them, carrying the songs to higher plateaus. The moving “Gauze” keeps everything together just enough to fine-tune the listener’s heartstrings, even though the band’s guitar strings sound like they haven’t been changed in months. Tim Rutili’s kid-with-hayfever vocals could have inspired fellow Chicagoan Jeff Tweedy, especially on the opening dirge “Carpet of Horses.” Conversely, “Chain Chain Chain” rocks slowly and heavily, pitting slackened dilapidation against the authority of taut expression. And not since Pavement’s compilation Westing (By Musket And Sextet) have sonic scribbles of sound come together so imperfectly beautiful as on “Rosewood, Wax, Voltz + Glitter.” Out of the seven bonus songs here, the true standouts are a lo-fi, rusty-hinged version of Low’s “Words” (dig the epic chorus) and the lengthy dub mix of “Mouse-ish.”
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