Preston School of Industry is the new band of a chap called Spiral Stairs, who is better known for being a founding member of Pavement. The cynical indie conspiracy theorists (god bless ‘em) may well point out the following argument; Pavements last (maybe) album was deemed a commercial failure, so the band split up into two separate bands. These two bands can then make music that would make the unknowing declare “Oh it’s Pavement” in order to drain the pockets of lo-fi kids the world over. It worked for the Spice Girls, where the kiddies find themselves having to buy the complete works of five separate artists each with their own USP. The lesson from this is record companies are evil but moving on…

I believe the point of this rambling is just a particularly obtuse way of saying both Stephen Malkmus (in band form) and Preston School of Industry sound like Pavement. Getting on with the actual CD. ‘Whale Bones’ is about Pavement finishing their last tour and using an obscure metaphor to further the ‘this man was once in Pavement’ point.

So to sum up, just in case a summing up paragraph is necessary. Preston School of Industry sound a fair bit like Pavement, but this is good because Pavement were great. But it’s not perfect. I would suggest that a possible improvement to the Preston school formula would be the inclusion of Stephen Malkmus on vocals.
Pavement fans will enjoy, but Feeder fans will still feel confused.