Finally following up 1995"s Are You Driving Me Crazy?, Sooyoung Park and his band of sensual feedback lovers return with The Pace is Glacial. The disc is reminiscent of Big Star"s seminal #1 Record, starting out with zesty nuggets of guitar crunch before settling into a more somber, yearning mood by album"s end. Like their friends in the Dambuilders and Superchunk, Seam know how to write a guitar hook that"s disorienting on first listen, pleasant on the second, and downright addictive from the third. Park has finally conquered the dark atonal sounds of his previous outfit, the semilegendary Bitch Magnet, opting for lonely-boy emocore with a heart as big as his fretboard. Curiously titled tracks like "Little Chang, Big City" and "Intifada Driving School" live up to their enigma, scraping lush but loud sparks from stereophonic granite. Glacial or not, Pace is steady enough to win the race. --Jason Josephes