Legend has it that the arch-indie-rock absurdists Pavement balked at semi-fame after their scintillating 1994 album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, chucking melodicism for moodier jags. Bosh to that. Wowee Zowee, released the following year, is the band’s peak. It’s got guitar-smartie Stephen Malkmus’s best freak-out (“Half a Canyon”), plus sideman Scott Kannberg’s best song (the wistful “Kennel District”), as well as some spooky country rock (“Pueblo,” “Father to a Sister of Thought”) and the definitive swat of cosmopolite twats (“Rattled by the Rush”). Alternate takes of album tracks are joined on this expanded edition by apt covers like “No More Kings” from the Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks compilation and the synthy B-side “Kris Kraft.” The core’s best moments, like the dive-bomb guitar plunge on the muscular “Grounded,” still define standoffish bravura.

Download: “Grounded,” “AT & T,” “Father to a Sister of Thought”