Demolition Plot J-7 shared many of the same indie and punk rock influences of Pavement's 1989 debut Slay Tracks: 1933–1969, but also diversified the group's sound by incorporating keyboards.

[1] While Malkmus was traveling to parts of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, Kannberg managed Slay Track's release on the band's self-owned label, Treble Kicker.

[3] Koretzky ordered 200 copies of the EP for the record store, and asked Kannberg to sign to his newly started independent label, Drag City.

[5] Pa recorded a series of instrumental demos, including new songs "Two States", "Forklift", and "Collapse", at Young's Louder Than You Think studios during a trip to Stockton.

"[8] A review in the Baltimore City Paper likened the EP's sound to "a cross between The Fall (circa Frenz Experiment) and Half Japanese".

[9] A review in LA Weekly stated that "The guitar on 'Internal K-Dart' and 'Fork Lift' is patently similar to Big Black and Dinosaur Jr., but Pavement steer clear of the former's pretentiously bleak posturing and the latter's dreary self-pity".

"Spizzle Trunk" is a punk-influenced track with "thrashy guitars", but it also includes "barroom Jerry Lee Lewis piano buried in the mix".

"Perfect Depth" is, according to Jovanovic, a "gloriously messy sonic assault", and "reflects a more considered Malkmus attempt at lyric crafting, even if they are nonsensical and almost impossible to hear".

Despite the new label's early financial struggles, Drag City used the profit from "Hero Zero" to press and release 1000 copies of Demolition Plot J-7.

[13] Demolition Plot J-7 helped define the early "messed-up, art-steeped guitar noise" sound of Drag City, which would become a seminal independent label.

"[15] Village Voice writer Michaelangelo Matos noted Demolition Plot J-7 and its follow-up, the 1991 EP Perfect Sound Forever, as "epochal to ... sloppy early-'90s undergrads.