“Hit the Plane Down” is the track that doesn’t get much attention from a lot of listeners. The penultimate offering on Pavement’s second album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain does suffer from being the odd one out amongst the other eleven that accompany it. Being the only one on there written by the band’s second guitarist Scott Kannberg AKA Spiral Stairs, it doesn’t have the same quality in terms of lyrics and musicality compared to the songs of Stephen Malkmus. However, its stomping drum pattern and messy guitars make it the heaviest-sounding song on the album, and makes for a good change from the slacker melodies that come before it.

Starting off with an emphatic drum roll from Steve West, the song proceeds to be led by a dissonant bassline made up of two notes while guitars blare out distorted chords and notes to create a disorderly mesh of noise. Kannberg sings through a filter to make him sound like his microphone isn’t working properly, and the track overall switches between the few verses and choruses it has before abruptly switching to a low quality recording of the band working on the track to bring it all to a close.

It is a mess. It doesn’t really go anywhere. But it is strangely entrancing to listen to.