Silver Jews - Starlite Walker

David Berman and Stephen Malkmus, the principal Silver Jews, met at the University of Virginia in the late '80s, around the same time Malkmus was flying home to California on vacations and starting Pavement. The Silver Jews' first two EPs shared Pavement's noise-straddled, lo-fi aesthetic; on them, the Jews sounded like a scaled-back, literary Pavement. Starlite Walker is the Jews' first proper album, and it benefits from Pavement's concurrent emergence as an indie-rock powerhouse. Pavement boys Steve West and Bob Nastanovich come aboard with real percussion and quaint touches like pedal steel guitar and toy piano, giving the Silver Jews a wider musical scope than previously attempted (to go along with studio production that adds miles and miles of clarity).