"They were playing the Parquet Courts' record and I thought it was Pavement," said former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus of the Brooklyn trio's second album. This follow-up, an intoxicated, stylistically varied stretch of rigid drum beats, repeated riffs and odes to melancholy, doesn't hide its influences either. Lyrical tales and scrappy guitars on Dear Ramona and Instant Disassembly salute the Velvet Underground, while the title track is a breathless four minutes of wit and punk energy. Slackers? This new, disciplined sound and the frequency of their output proves that they're very much the opposite.