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Basically (for convenience’s sake), the album’s songs can be divided into three categories: raw garage-punk rave-ups, rough pop songs, and plain sloppy stuff. In the first category belong “Tipp City,” a noisy rocker with howled vocals; “Full on Idle,” a ramshackle track that starts off with a quiet guitar that suddenly transforms itself into a nonsensical fun track; and “Empty Glasses,” which does sound drunk. None of these songs has the out of step-freakiness or quality of the earlier Pixies-stuff, but the sound (certainly the drums) is somewhat similar to that of Surfer Rosa. The album’s highlight is the Deal/Pollard-collaboration “I Am Decided,” that benefits from those jangly guitars and a great sing-along chorus that matches Pod’s best tracks. Other successful pop songs are the two last songs: the decent “She’s a Girl” and the gentle schizo-pop of “Dedicated,” which hides a gorgeous melody beneath the superficial roughness. The rest (half) of the album consists of very sloppy songs, many of which sound as if they were invented during the recording sessions, and while the simple, lengthy and dreamy “Bragging Party” is the album’s second good track, the equally droning “First Revival” sounds too much of a rehash of that song. “Pacer,” the album’s opener has a nice melody, but remains somewhat unsubstantial. Finally, there are remaining disappointing songs: the false and uninspired “Mom’s Drunk” (we’re lucky it’s only 1:41 long), the annoyingly repetitive “Hoverin” and the similar “Breaking the Split Screen Barrier” that ‘starts’ after one and a half minute, has echo coming and going and inspiration never appearing.

Clearly a project that allowed Deal to focus less on elaborate song-writing than on joyfully rocking out, Pacer nevertheless remains a bit of a frustrating album that would have made a good 8 song-EP. Why it was heralded by several trend-setting magazines as a minor 90’s masterpiece remains a mystery to me, but maybe this is precisely what you are looking for.