Terror Twilight is California Band, Pavement’s 5th studio album. The genre is a mix of
folky acoustic songs and slow indie rock. Terror Twilight was release in June of 1999 and was
produced by Nigel Godrich. Godrich was known for his work with other alternative artists such
as Radiohead, Beck, and REM. Godrich was looking to control Pavements chaos for a more easy
listening album, and because of this there were issues during production. Godrich had previously
been a fan of Pavement so when he got the offer to produce their album he offered to do so for
free, only asking for a cut of the royalties. It seems like making this album caused a LOT of
tensions in the band, giving Terror Twilight the reputation of the hardest Pavement album to
make. Following this album, the band broke up.
As far as the sound goes, this album is incredibly smooth. Contrary to SOME Pavement
songs, the vocals are toned town quite a bit. The guitar lends a nice ring throughout the track list.
There are some acoustic elements in this album. The song Folk Jam is as it sounds like, a folk
jam. It has the vibe of indie redneck. I really love a lot of theses songs, my favorites being Major
Leagues, You Are a Light, and Ann Don’t Cry. I am very comforted by this album, it sounds very
warm and inviting while also not being too boring by spicing slower songs up with a tone switch
in the middle. The bass is also very heavy, leading song from one part to another effectively. It
sounds like there is also some sort of soundboard making swooshing noises. A few of the songs
have more of a heavy feeling, none of the instruments sounding thin. Overall, it’s a little bit of a
weird album to analyze because each and every song sounds pretty different while all being just
similar enough to qualify for the same album.
Over the 44 minutes of this album, I have decided it’s one of my favorites. I don’t really
swing toward indie music, but this is one of those exceptions. Pavement just does it so tastefully.
Nothing was boring even though it was all fairly slow. There are no songs on this album that
were bad. Each and every one was a banger. I rate Terror Twilight a 9/10.