by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
With its vast array of musical styles, Wowee Zowee isn't as accessible as Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain or as immediate as the bracing, noisy pop of Slanted & Enchanted. Pavement never abandon their warped pop aesthetic, they simply expand it, incorporating elements of folk-rock, English music hall, soul, jazz, country, as well as adding asides to such contemporaries as Suede (&We Dance&), Ween (&Brinx Job&), and Stereolab (&Half a Canyon&). Alternating between majestic epics like &Grounded& and ragged narratives like &Rattled by the Rush& and &Father to a Sister of Thought,& to song fragments like &Brinx Job& and the punkish &Serpentine Pad,& the record might seem disjointed at first. After repeated listens, the songs play off each other, creating a dense collage of '90s rock & roll that recasts the past and present into one rich, kaleidoscopic, and blissfully cryptic world view.