Stephen Malkmus- Mirror Traffic

Now that he's released the same number of solo albums as he did with Pavement, Stephen Malkmus has proven, if nothing else, that he's still committed to making music as a full-time career. Furthermore, the work he's done with his backing band, The Jicks, has been of a fairly consistent quality and definitely not the work of a man coasting on goodwill from his youth. Wandering between eclectic, song focused releases (his self titled debut and Face The Truth) and guitar-centric, jammy records (Pig Lib, Real Emotional Trash), his post-Pavement work has seen him go as far as he can. Now he's settled into the craftsman phase of his career, making music that never re-invents his sound or innovates but is nevertheless enjoyable.

Mirror Traffic is something of an attempt to combine the two sides of his Jicks-backed solo work. Boasting 15 songs, it's to be expected that it wanders a bit. Anyway, focus and finesse were never one of Malkmus's strongpoints. He's usually at his best when he's wandering to extremes, and this record tries to go to both of his extremes at the same time. So you'd expect that the obvious touchstones for this album would be Pavement's Wowee Zowee and Real Emotional Trash, and you'd be right. Except that, when he made those albums, those extremes were new and fresh. Mirror Traffic is, well, exactly what you'd expect of a new Stephen Malkmus album in 2011.

See, Mirror Traffic is a comfortable record. He's pretty much doing what he's always done, and even when the results can be as good as anything he's ever done, it's still a boring, disinterested album. When Malkmus goes for a big guitar solo, the playing may be as strong as ever, but it doesn't always follow coherently from the song—the way 'Long Hard Book' ends with a solo feels completely half-assed, as if he couldn't think of a good ending so he stuck in a guitar solo. Lyrically, Malkmus has never been the most sensical writer, but there was an oblique logic to his lines. On Mirror Traffic, I always got the impression the music was written first and then he improvised lyrics to fit; 'Share The Red' comes off like a song written around guitar solos, and the embarrassingly bad 'Senator' will rank up there with 'Discretion Grove' and 'Major Leagues' in the pantheon of Malkmus stabs at mainstream acceptance/relevance.

Tellingly, Mirror Traffic is at its best when Malkmus is trying new things. 'No One Is (As I Are Be)' argues compellingly for an all acoustic album from him at some point in his career, with an easygoing backing of skittering snare drum and modest bass lines. The short instrumental 'Jumblegloss' recalls the psychedelic ending to the album version of Pavement's 'Shady Lane' and unfortunately ends right as it seems to be heading for some lyrics. Continuing in his now established tradition of excellent album closers, 'Gorgeous Georgie' makes me wish he would use the Jicks more prominently as vocalists. However, the overall story of this record is one of good-but-redundant rock songs. After the first two tracks you could listen to the album in any order you wish. There's no sense of flow or pacing to where 'Stick Figures In Love', 'Spazz', 'Tune Grief', 'Forever 28', and 'Fall Away' are placed. Which isn't to say they're bad songs, they're simply forgettable and Malkmus sounds like he's going through the motions.

Feelings for Mirror Traffic are going to be all over the place. It's the kind of record where if you've been following Malkmus's career closely, you'll think it's a solid if unremarkable release, one that doesn't see him besting his past or going many new places. If you've only occasionally listened to Malkmus over the years, Mirror Traffic will seem quirky and interesting, sometimes sloppy but still fun.

3 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Sebadoh- The Sebadoh

Well, what better way to dip my toes into the fresh bathwater of 2010 than to review an album from 1999? I always end up spending the first couple months of every new year playing catch up on years past, and I simultaneously start re-thinking how I approach reviews and my writing in general. 1999 is my personal Year Zero, you could say, since it was when I started reading music magazines and websites, though I rarely checked them against my own feelings as I do now. It's downright quaint to dig up '99 era reviews of The Sebadoh from Pitchfork, Allmusic.com, or Amazon. Similarly, I think back to the kind of reviews I was writing in high school, college, and even last year. Speaking of, I saw a copy of this album on vinyl for months on end at my local record store, for only $11, but by the time I didn't see enough other albums I wanted and tried to find it, it was gone.

Alas, cruel fate. Perhaps the world was trying to tell me something?

Anyway, for whatever reason, The Sebadoh has some coincidental relationships to my life, yet it never formed any lasting impression on me when I fgot it from the library in 2000. As my first exposure to "indie rock", it was something of a non-event. I remember thinking that the songs weren't catchy enough though I was impressed by the loud and thick sounding guitars. It made me think of the way that you could always hear the bass and guitar pretty definitely and separately in classic rock like Led Zeppelin, and I couldn't understand why so many modern bands mostly buried the bass in the mix. Returning to the album today, after I've spent most of the last decade getting really into music, and indie rock in particular, it's odd how different I feel about it now. I guess it's a sign of how much I've changed?

Lest this review become too introspective, I'll dig into the album now by saying that, while I'm not very familiar with Sebadoh's discography, the modern day version of me likes The Sebadoh. The guitars that so impressed the teenage version of Greg still hit home; in fact, the production may be my favorite thing about the album. The best way I can think to describe it is that it sounds like a clear bootleg, particularly on the mid-fi sounding 'Cuban', which has an off-kilter bass/drum groove that doesn't sound like the classicist "indie rock" that Sebadoh stood for. The overall sound is LOUD but without the kind of distortion and clipping that's associated with the mid-to-late 00's production style of Dave Fridmann. Moreover, the bass is almost always given a powerful kick from some kind of fuzz or overdrive pedal, to the point where I end up mistaking it for a second guitar. It actually reminds me a lot of, say, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion or Sleater-Kinney, both of whom (if memory serves) have two guitarists but one of them tunes down to a bassy/mid-range sound. This incredibly loud, bass-y production reaches its peak on 'So Long': whenever I play this in my car, I feel like one of those obnoxious people blowing out their subwoofer to prove how cool they are. It gets that deep and bone rattling.

The Sebadoh isn't all throttling indie rock, though. Some of the tracks make subtle use of keyboards and electronic effects, like the appropriately propulsive opener 'It's All You' or the excellent 'Colorblind', both album highlights. There's also the expected Lou Barlow ballad-type mopers about relationships, but those are my least favorite songs here. The Sebadoh sounds more cohesive and is more consistent than the only other Sebadoh album I've heard, Harmacy, but this is a band that often suffers from the divide between its main songwriters. I never get the sense that Lou Barlow and Jason Loewenstein were competitive in the least, so they pretty much stick to their own comfortable styles and subjects without trying to outdo one another. Without even a de-facto leader, Sebadoh's albums sound a bit too concerned with equal billing and "we'll take turns." Much as I hate to admit it, bands often need one strong creative personality to make them truly great. I don't mean this to sound like an insult, but: it's pretty telling that Barlow is better known as "the bassist for Dinosaur Jr." and Loewenstein has lately been spending his time as the touring bassist for the Fiery Furnaces. Compare Sebadoh and its songwriters to other, better known contemporaries--Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, Doug Martsch of Built To Spill--and you get a similar takeaway.

Ironically, while I may like The Sebadoh more today than I did as a teen, my original assessment is still fairly accurate: the production and overall sound is awesome, but the songwriting isn't quite there. Don't mistake this for a sudden reversal of opinion after I've spent a few paragraphs making nice. It is a really good album, but it's not a "classic." There's a reason it was Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain which got me into indie rock and not The Sebadoh.

Shuffling VI

OK people, you know the drill.

Shuffle!!

1) Maybe Maybe by Pavement- This is the version from the Brighten The Corners deluxe reissue, which I think is some kind of radio station/John Peel session piss take. Somehow it's even sloppier than the original lo-fi version you can hear on the Westing (By Sextant And Musket) compilation. Anyway, this kind of song wasn't made for a full band so it doesn't come off well here.

2) The Smallest Weird Number by Boards Of Canada- This short track reminds me of how fascinating this band is even on a small scale. Though a bit over one minute long, it is perfection in microcosm, packing in all kinds of interesting textures and sounds.

3) Puttin' On The Dog by Tom Waits- Ah, one of those gin joint, roadhouse blues stomps from Tom Waits. Someday there really oughta be a movie made of Charles Bukowski's work that has songs by Waits as a soundtrack. Listening to a song like this, you feel as though you're in the dark corner of a dive bar nursing a scotch and water that you bought with the last four bucks in your wallet, wondering what you're going to do now. Then a woman walks by and makes you feel something after you assumed you couldn't anymore, and hell, you figure you have nothing to lose...

4) Shooting Star by Elliott Smith- Man, if he had actually finished From A Basement On A Hill, it would've been one weird album. It already is a helter-skelter affair in its half-finished, post-humous state, but there truly is a paranoid late 60s pop/rock atmosphere that runs through it, recalling The White Album and the unfinished-until-2004 Smile project. This six minute song proves that Smith could've really made something out of a full touring band kind of sound rather than the lonely singer/songwriter stuff he's known for or the studio perfectionist, borderline orchestral pop of Figure 8 and XO. The guitar stuff around the 3:35 mark is especially good--hell, who knew he could play like that (assuming it isn't a sessionman)??

5) Back Of Your Head by Cat Power- It's too bad (for me) that Chan Marshall is caught up in 60s soul/R&B-isms and being all happy, because her earlier work is impossibly sad and beautiful. As much as I love Nico's The Marble Index, I think that Cat Power's Moon Pix is more enjoyably dower. 'Back Of Your Head' is a lonely willow of a song, its lyrics reminding me of so many bittersweet, and simply bitter, moments in my own life and romances. Also, "you hold the big picture so well/can't you see that we're going to hell?" is a chilling summation of a relationship that always gets to me. Sniff....

Pavement- Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition

For a lot of bands, the ten year mark is the time when they start to look around and question what they're doing. There's a palpable sense of momentum running out. Maybe the muse stops coming as often as she did. Maybe they just get tired of being around the same people all the time. Whatever the case is, the band members are ten years older, too, and those kind of milestones make you question everything around you. I'm about two months away from turning 25--a quarter century old, yeesh--and I was just talking to a longtime friend last night about the past. Through a haze of scotch and nostalgia, I remember telling her that I live my life in the present and the past; the future is a terrifying unknown to me.

These are all the kind of things I think about when I listen to Brighten The Corners. In my review of the non-deluxe edition of the album I said that "[i]t's Pavement's most mature album in many ways, from the mostly mannered songs and arrangements to the lyrical subjects that frequently mention marriage, growing old, and changes in general." Writing about the album those months ago I was looking forward to the forthcoming reissue to give me some more context for it, to maybe help me appreciate it better. Well, my feeling about the original Brighten The Corners remains the same. It's Pavement's weakest album and their least interesting. But the extra material included here is worth discussing for two reasons:

1) It is much more rambunctious and messy than the album
2) It represents the beginning of the end of Pavement

If you pre-ordered the so-called Nicene Creed Edition of Brighten The Corners, it came with an unreleased live album on vinyl. Since it was such a limited release and doesn't come with every copy I won't get into it too greatly. I wish it had been included with every copy of the album, though, since it's so good. Despite the scattered live songs on the other deluxe reissues and the shows on the Slow Century DVD, we've never been given a good snapshot of live Pavement pre-'99. Wherever this show was recorded in Europe in '97, the versions of the songs played on it are loose and fun, again hinting that sometimes Pavement's loose and sloppy approach to shows could produce brilliance. As for the extras included on the 2 CD set, well, they're spotty at best.

The most confusing aspect of this reissue to me, initially, was that a good deal of the b-sides and outtakes included here date from the Terror Twilight era. What I've since realized is that--and this gets into the second point I wanted to make--the band were already beginning to dissolve at this point. The two best extras on the first CD--'And Then (The Hexx)' and 'Harness Your Hopes'--come from b-sides from the single for 'Spit On A Stranger', which is from the Terror Twilight album. Was the band so starved for material that they dug back into the Corners sessions?? It seems so. This is made clearer by the general poorness of the other outtakes and b-sides. 'Westie Can Drum' and 'Roll With The Wind' are fun but rough, reminding one of the Wowee Zowee era.

The second CD flies off the rails entirely, showing Pavement at their best and worst. 'Slowly Typed' is an interesting, country romp version of 'Type Slowly' while 'Cherry Area' is a frustrating, stuttering, and apathetic electro-grind alternate version of 'Embassy Row.' Meanwhile, the four covers range in quality from good to pointless ('The Killing Moon' is good, 'Oddity' is decent synth-pop, 'It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl' and 'The Classical' are only worth a single listen). Of the remainder, only the "psych" into to 'Embassy Row', a jammy live take on 'Type Slowly', and the playful 'Grave Architecture' are revelatory. One assumes they were serious about the 'clearing the vaults' idea by including the two versions of the band's attempt to "play" the Space Ghost "theme", because only hardcore fans like your's truly would be patient enough to sit through five minutes of Pavement flailing around and making noise.

I can't help coming away from this deluxe edition feeling disappointed. But I think most of that has to do with my expectations and not the product. I wanted something more, I guess, than the usual lot of b-sides, outtakes, and live material. For what it's worth, the essay included in the booklet is unnecessary and useless, especially compared to the other reissues, which had decent essays and/or notes from the band members. And I guess that lies at the heart of why I find this whole package a let down. Brighten The Corners has always struck me as not particularly interesting and the bonus material included here is a mess, not up to the general quality of previous reissues. Really the best thing about it is the live album but you had to pre-order it and have a way of playing a vinyl record to enjoy it. But I digress...

The Nicene Creed edition of Brighten The Corners is currently available for only two dollars more than the standard edition on Amazon.com. Even the most casual Pavement fan will find the extra disc-and-a-half of bonus material worth that kind of money. Yet I still have reservations about the album itself. You can read my in-depth take on it elsewhere, but suffice it to say that a three star album with a mixed bag of extra material only gets bumped up to four at best. This is really more of quantity over quality thing, but if you're a fan of the band it's worth it. And I can't wait to see what they do for the inevitably reissue of Terror Twilight in a year or two...

Stephen Malkmus- Stephen Malkmus

Dear Stephen Malkmus:

As I write this letter, I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of a package containing the expanded reissue of your former band Pavement's album Brighten The Corners. It comes with an unreleased live album (on vinyl, no less!!) that was supposed to have been released between Corners and Terror Twilight. In some strange way I think I'm looking forward to this reissue more than the other ones because, honestly, Brighten The Corners has always been my least favorite Pavement album and '96 to '98 are the era I know the least about. This had me thinking, too, about your other band, the Jicks, and the "solo" albums you've done since Pavement with them. And I realized that your first, self-titled "solo" album is my least favorite of the bunch so far but that I also am the least familiar with it.

So I decided to give it another listen and take some notes, to give some form to my feelings about the album and why I can only remember a handful of songs from it. I'm sending you this letter because I think I need to karmically balance my endless stream of love letters with some criticism.

Stephen Malkmus is a strange album. Actually, what I meant to say is, it's a confused album. You originally called it 'Swedish Reggae.' And it was supposed to be billed as simply 'The Jicks' with your name nowhere on the package. Finally, it was a self-titled "solo" release even though people stress that it's not really "solo." Except that the line-up of the Jicks keeps changing from album to album and...Yeah, see what I mean?? I really wish you had kept the original title, it was great. The use or not of the new band name doesn't matter much to me but did you really need to have a picture of yourself on the cover?? It's lazy and expected that an artist's first solo album would be both self-titled and have a picture of them on the cover. At least you didn't go the Peter Gabriel route and self-title your first four solo albums...

Trying to give concrete details of the misgivings I have for this album is tough. It's just a general sense of malaise, as if you threw everything at a wall and saw what stuck. Stephen Malkmus has some fantastic songs--'Church On White' is a brilliant psychedelic ballad, 'The Hook' is cowbell driven fun, and 'Vague Space' is a relaxed late album gem with a great chorus--but the rest stream by without much impact. 'Troubbble' is a ill-advised return to the short Pavement pieces like 'Serpentine Pad'; 'Pink India' flails around for almost six minutes in search of a direction; 'Trojan Curfew' sounds like a bad Built To Spill b-side; the best part about the overblown MOR rocker 'Discretion Grove' is the cool drum loop that opens it...The album has the feel of an artist pulled in two directions at once, toward more mannered classicist rock/pop via ballads and guitar solos but also toward the usual slew of surreal lyrics and unexpected surprises. I rarely break down an album song by song, but my lasting impression of Stephen Malkmus is that it's half great and half sub-par. It's a transitional album through and through, Mr. Malkmus (can I call you Stephen??), and while they make for interesting listens they usually aren't especially good.

I don't mean to sound overly harsh, but we're most critical of those we love. I like your first "solo" album but I don't love it. You definitely developed the nascent ideas of this release with your next three solo releases, which are all excellent. Here's hoping my package gets here today. I hope you and your family are doing well and that you have a lovely holiday season.

Your fan,

Greg Lytle
p.s. Any chance of a reissue for that Crust Brothers album?? For the title alone, Marquee Mark should never go out of print.

From the "you can't make this stuff up" file: the package came as I was editing this review. Weird.

Album of the Week: Silver Jews- American Water

American Water is an album that I've listened to so many times and have such a clear affection for that I feel as though I must have already reviewed it two or three times at least. Yet I can't find any evidence that I have, so hey, here we go!!

Once albums get old enough, you just kind of assume that enough people have written enough interesting things about them that the people who are seeking out that kind of music will find their way to it. To use an obvious example, Dark Side of the Moon is rightfully considered a must-have album but it's tough to write about it without feeling redundant or focusing on personal anecdotes. But there are albums like American Water which need cheerleaders and don't get written about enough from any perspective, whether it be critical or personal.

The main reason that I and others love the Silver Jews is for David Berman's striking lyrics. While I also like the mostly predictable and competently played country-tinged indie rock that goes along with the lyrics, it's Berman's way with words that earns my devotion. If you're in the right company, he is endlessly quotable; if you're in the wrong company and feeling like a plagiarist, you suddenly have an arsenal of poetic musings and imagery to conjure forth. Berman has a unique gift for making specific and (possibly) personal lines seem like universal generalities, letting highly detailed scenes and intricate thoughts pour easily out of his cup. For Silver Jews fans, American Water is the high tide (pun intended, but regrettable) for excellent lyrics, with tantalizing nuggets like the following to feast upon:

"Repair is the dream of the broken thing/Like a message broadcast on an overpass/all my favorite singers couldn't sing" ('We Are Real')

"Every falling leaf in a compact mirror/hits a target that we can't see" ('The Wild Kindness')

"The alleys are the footnotes of the avenues" ('Smith & Jones Forever')

And the ever immortal:
"The drums march along at the clip of an I.V. drip/like sparks from a muffler dragged down the strip" ('People')

American Water occupies a precious space in the Silver Jews discography between the sloppy-but-enjoyable early Jews and the slick boredom of modern day Jews. I went into this whole thing in greater depth in my review for Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea so suffice it to say that the Jews moved in a direction that took the emphasis off Berman's lyrics and put it unto the music. While that album is pretty catchy, I don't go to the Jews for catchy songs; anyway, Berman's voice and songwriting aren't built for it, so the whole record was pretty 'bleh' in my opinion. I suppose that's partially because the lyrics for Lookout Mountain are among the weakest in Berman's career, but I digress.

American Water is completely great lyrically and musically. It's hard to know how much effect the other Silver Jews have on the songs since most Silver Jews albums sound a lot alike even though the crew changes each time (Berman is the only constant, naturally), but some credit must go to the Water band for pulling off these great songs. 'Smith & Jones Forever', 'Like Like The The The Death', and 'Wild Kindness' are pretty ambitious for this band, and since Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement and solo artist fame) co-wrote two of the songs ('Federal Dust' and 'Blue Arrangements') you've got to assume he was a big part of the success of these songs. Doubly so when you realize that during this same period of time he was cleaning up and streamlining the usually ramshackle Pavement. But I'll save that treat for a review of the forthcoming deluxe reissue of Brighten The Corners, so stay tuned!!

(This review is getting needlessly digressive so I'll attempt to bring us back into port.)

To put it succinctly, American Water is both the best Silver Jews album and the best way to figure out if you're going to like this band. Beyond that, American Water is one of those minor league masterpieces from the indie rock contingent that I wish more people knew about and appreciated. David Berman deserves the attention and praise but I'd hate to think he's only going to get it now that he's actually touring and releasing light-and-accessible-but-lacking-depth fare like Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea. Put down Dark Side of the Moon for a day and give this one a shot.

Primer: Pavement Part 6- Terror Twilight

The final albums by bands often have a fascinating quality about them that has nothing to do with the music contained inside. It's tempting to throw the lyrics across a table like owl bones and try to read coded messages about a break-up or inter-band acrimony. At the same time, it's also tempting to compare the final album to the subsequent solo material and/or side projects of the former band members. Would the band have naturally headed in those directions, or did it take the end of the band and a "clean slate" mindset to create those changes??

Terror Twilight has a reputation that has nothing to do with the music. Fans see in the lyrics from 'Ann Don't Cry' Stephen Malkmus's farewell to the band--"I am not having fun anymore"--while a literal farewell was in the alternate title for the album (according to The Slow Century DVD, a working title was Farewell Horizontal). However, I've never bought the assertion I see sometimes that this is a proto-Malkmus solo album. Though all the songs are written by Malkmus, there is still that distinct Pavement-ness to the album; in fact, despite the production of Nigel Godrich, it's actually more unhinged and off-the-cuff than Brighten The Corners.

Coming at the end of the 90s and the end of the band's lifetime, Terror Twilight is their secret masterpiece. I would wager that as time has gone on, and continues to go on, more and more people will come around to it. As it's the band's last album, it's had too much stigma attached to it for people to peel back those surface layers and get to the meat beneath. That is to say, it's the band's most overtly psychedelic and 60s inspired album. For the video for 'Shady Lane', Malkmus's vision for director Spike Jonze was to create something that was "psychedelic but not retro." That vision, it seems to me, was carried over to the Terror Twilight album.

In many ways, too, Terror Twilight is like a mini-Wowee Zowee in terms of its variety. The MOR pop ballad 'Major Leagues'--which I initially hated and have only recently come around to, thanks to its sublime "they'll wear you down sometime" bit--butts up against the dense, three-part, bluesy (no pun intended) 'Platform Blues', with harmonica soloing from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood. Elsewhere, the cool, groovy 'Speak, See, Remember' (the one song that even people who don't seem to like Terror Twilight will admit is awesome) gives way to the the intense guitar meltdown 'The Hexx' (the first of many Malkmus long jams that either end or help bring an album to a close), which then gives way to the impossibly catchy 'Carrot Rope', complete with overlapping sing-along vocals.

Pavement's album covers, lyrics, and music have always been odd and sitting outside the mainstream, but Terror Twilight pushes the whole thing into 'psychedelic.' For instance, 'Spit On A Stranger' is about kissing another person for the first time, though you would really have to think about it to understand that. With these skewed lyrical nuggets comes a more overtly psychedelic/60s inspired sound. Though some of this credit must be given to producer Nigel Godrich, who had Radiohead's OK Computer from 1997 and Beck's Mutations from 1998 under his belt (two albums that have similar psychedelic/60s leanings), Malkmus must take the main brunt of the credit/blame for this album. Guitar effects pedals and mostly-subtle squiggling and burbling keyboards are used prominently alongside clean guitars with slight reverb. At the same time, some of the songs are Malkmus's most ambitious, like the aforementioned 'Platform Blues' and 'Speak, See, Remember.' Watching the band play these songs live in The Slow Century DVD, you get the feeling that Malkmus broke up the band partially because they simply weren't tight and practiced enough to do these justice. It simply wasn't in Pavement to have that much discipline; in the same DVD, bassist Mark Ibold points out that he sings on 'Carrot Rope' but they don't play it live because he couldn't teach himself to play bass and sing at the same time.

I will concede that Terror Twilight isn't their best album. That title rightfully belongs to one of their first three depending on your taste. However, Terror Twilight also isn't as mediocre as people have been saying since its release. While Brighten The Corners needs a reissue to help flesh out its era and give it some context, Terror Twilight is the album that people need to return to without the baggage of context. If you merely listen to it and let it reveal itself for what it is, you'll find a lot to like here.

Primer: Pavement Part 5- Brighten The Corners

Of all the Pavement albums most in need of reevaluation and re-contextualizing via the deluxe reissue treatments Matador has been giving Pavement for the past half decade, Brighten The Corners is at the top of my list, followed by Terror Twilight. While I have a clear picture of what Terror Twilight is and what the band were trying to achieve, I also know that there were a myriad of b-sides and Spiral Stairs songs left off that will provide for rich grist when the time comes for its 2 CD rebirth.

What I can't quite grasp is much about Brighten The Corners. Its era (1996 through early 1998) is easily the most undiscussed and unknown period in Pavement's history; things seem to kind of stop at the end of the Wowee Zowee era with the release in January 1996 of the Pacific Trim EP and pick up again in the summer of 1998, with the recording sessions for Terror Twilight, which is also a time when Stephen Malkmus began to do solo shows and was quickly, then slowly, then quickly on his way to breaking up the band toward the end of 1999. Watching The Slow Century DVD you would hardly know Brighten The Corners is released, other than the five or so minutes it's given where Stephen Malkmus mentions that with the album they were trying to show more of their classic rock and REM influences.

Yet even with that Rosetta Stone the album itself is a bit of a slippery thing to nail down. It's Pavement's most mature album in many ways, from the mostly mannered songs and arrangements to the lyrical subjects that frequently mention marriage, growing old, and changes in general. It also is their most accessible by virtue of the fact that there are no noise bursts or screaming; even their other "my parents might like this" album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, had stuff like 'Hit The Plane Down.' So, then, Brighten The Corners is their classic rock/REM album...but it's Pavement's take on this aesthetic, so it's odd and still too strange for the mainstream audience it should have/was trying to appeal to.

We need to keep in mind that, during 1996 and 1997, people were again predicting the death of rock and roll. Electronica/techno had finally caught on in America--after years of being huge in Europe and other locales--and as usual for a short sighted and culturally narrow minded populace, some American critics and writers began to wonder if it would replace rock. Never mind that "with us or against us" and black-and-white have no place in music and never have; also never mind that jazz, blues, rock, hip hop, country, folk, techno, etc. can co-exist peacefully and cross pollinate and create great things. No, it seems that everyone was again making the mistake and saying rock was dead. Into this mire came Pavement, with their most thoroughly old fashioned album. In the aforementioned DVD, a European journalist asks Malkmus if, with Brighten The Corners, they are trying to save rock. He mutters some clever answer about how they feel alone on an island with a few other bands, but they'll save it in the end. I don't think he meant it, but it's a telling comment/joke nonetheless.

It's impossible for me to listen to this album without the above paragraph of context. Brighten The Corners is a sharp departure from the excess and variety of Wowee Zowee, and while I don't think it was an attempt to become a huge popular band that would save rock, it must at least have been an attempt to do something wholly different from their last. For that very reason, it's my least favorite Pavement album, and in many ways, I think it's their least interesting both to listen to and talk about. You may have noticed how much time I've given to everything about the album other than the music, and that's done half intentionally and half not so. I simply don't feel like I have much to say about the album; after a listen or two, its strengths and weaknesses feel self evident.

There are three things I want to point out, and they each involve two song pairs. The first is that 'Stereo' and 'Shady Lane' are among the best Pavement songs ever, and that they begin the album and were the sole singles from it is significant. Secondly, this album is the showcase for Spiral Stairs. Though he only contributes two songs, they are probably his best--with all due respect to 'Kennel District.' 'Date With Ikea' is a great, classicist rock/pop song with Kannberg's unpretentious vocals to make it deeply hummable, while 'Passat Dream' is one of the most unique pieces of the Pavement discography, with a danceable drum beat and a psychedelic backdrop of guitars, keyboards, and "ooh-woo-woo-ooh-ohh" vocals. Lastly, the album closes with the one-two punch of 'Starlings of the Slipstream' and 'Fin', two songs that both have that distinctive "this is the song that closes the album" feel to them. They always throw me off because I don't expect 'Fin' until it starts because 'Starlings' has such finality to it.

Actually, I lied, I have one last thing to say about the album. I'll try to make this quick because I don't have any evidence to back this up. Rather, this is just a matter of feeling: Brighten The Corners doesn't feel like a Pavement album to me. I say "feel" but I also mean "sound." I'm trying my best not to be vague, but there is simply something a bit off about the whole thing. Something in the production, the way the songs sound, how the instruments work with the lyrics, the general vibe of the whole thing...People like to give Terror Twilight guff for being a proto-Malkmus solo album, but if it is, at least it sounds like the other Pavement albums. Listen to Brighten The Corners before or after their other ones. All Pavement albums have a unique vibe and sound, but--again, apologies for being vague--there is something off about Brighten The Corners.

Though Brighten The Corners is my least favorite Pavement album, it also proves how good least-favorite-albums-by-one-of-my-favorite-bands can be. It's the sort of thing like Bossanova by the Pixies where I always forget how much I enjoy it until I make myself listen to it again. I look forward to the deluxe reissue of Brighten The Corners in order to help me get a better understanding and possible appreciation of this (kind of) undiscovered era of Pavement. Until then, know that Brighten The Corners is worth a listen for fans, but only after you've heard everything else. While it may seem I am being a bit harsh on something I admittedly like, I listen to it the least of any Pavement/Malkmus albums, and that should say more than all the words I just rambled out.

Album of the Week/Primer: Pavement Part 4- Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition

1994 and 1995 were hugely prolific years for Pavement. While the band were busy touring all over the place--even enjoying an ill fated stint on the 1995 Lollapalooza tour--they managed to release two great albums: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee. While the former has all the feel of a band becoming a band, with songs polished and eager to see action in the wild, the latter has all the feel of a band comfortable with each other, willing to try anything and stretch their horizons. The former was recorded mostly in a small studio in New York, while the latter was recorded mostly in the comfy confines of Memphis. In short, Wowee Zowee is a sloppy, schizophrenic "band album" that may strike most listeners as more fun to make than it is to listen to.

For my part, the album underscores, italicizes, and bolds the difference between "my favorite album from a band" and "the best album by a band." Is it a critic's duty to argue for his ragged beloved even if he knows his family, friends, and readers might not like it at all--"really, Dad, she's got a great personality!!"--or to acknowledge its flaws and, instead, work up the same level of enthusiasm for a more polished, digestible album that people are bound to like?? Should I consider my favorite album to be a band's best album, or should I always concede to popular opinion and taste?? Frankly, I love Woee Zowee and it's easily my favorite album by Pavement (in fact, most 'hardcore' fans, and members of the band, seem to feel the same) but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who's never heard the band before. As I said in my reviews for Slanted & Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, the latter is really the best place for newbies to start as well as being their most agreeable album. You could make a pretty solid case for either of Pavement's first two albums as being their definitive best, but you'll only ever see hardcore fans arguing that Wowee Zowee is their best.

I am one of them. Wowee Zowee is secretly one of the best albums of the 90s, but you would also have to like Pavement to feel that way. In my mind, I think of this album as being the most Pavement of all Pavement albums. It sounds like a band not trying to be anything except themselves. They let it all hang out here, too: the album is Pavement's longest and most diverse by a wide margin. In critic shorthand, we call this "a band's White Album." That Wowee Zowee begins with the slow, lurching 'We Dance' (a song that itself begins with the uncomfortable lyric "there is no/castration fear") speaks volumes for what the band were going for here. Moreover, the band chose 'Rattled By The Rush' and 'Father To a Sister of Thought' for the singles, two songs that don't exactly scream out for mid 90s alternative rock radio play. 'Father To a Sister of Thought', other than having of the best titles in the entire Pavement canon, just happens to be a mid-tempo countrified rocker that recalls 'Range Life' from Crooked Rain. So, yeah, it'd be hard to picture that playing after 'Zero' by the Smashing Pumpkins.

Other highlights abound. 'Grounded' is still one of my favorite songs from this or any album, with repetitive, swirling guitars and crunchy breaks. 'Grave Architecture' has one of those propulsive guitar/bass/drum grooves you can imagine yourself driving to or drinking to in a basement party. 'Flux = Rad' is a caustic punker that sees the band tapping back into their hardcore influences, Malkmus screaming "I don't wanna let you!!" before the song collapses into the two-part, epic sounding 'Fight This Generation', one of the band's masterpieces. Finally, there's 'Kennel District', Spiral Stairs' most visible and worthwhile contribution to an album up to this point, driven by a huge, fuzzy bassline and a distorted, upper register guitar.

Like their first two albums, Wowee Zowee was reissued in a deluxe fashion, titled Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition. You might think that, with such a long album, there wouldn't be much left to hear. Surprisingly, then, this disc-and-a-half of extras is every bit the equal of the Crooked Rain bonuses, if not the Slanted & Enchanted high water mark. Along with outtakes and b-sides from the 'Rattled By The Rush' and 'Father To A Sister of Thought' singles, disc one includes the Pacific Trim EP, which is a curious footnote both in the Pavement and Silver Jews histories. Pavement members Malkmus, Steve West, and Bob Nastanovich were supposed to record some Silver Jews material with David Berman at a studio, but Berman backed out at the last minute. Rather than waste the money, the three soldiered on, banging out these four songs in a few days. But I digress. None of this extra material is going to change your life, but for fans of this era of Pavement, they're like manna from heaven. 'Gangsters & Pranksters' is just one of those fun non-album tracks that fans of bands eat up and cherish and misguidedly put up mixtapes for friends who don't get it.

Disc two is far more scattershot. But, hey, that's what we love about Wowee Zowee, right?? 'Sensitive Euro Man' is a slight, formerly-soundtrack-only Malkmus number, better ed significantly by Spiral Stairs' 'Painted Soliders', another formerly-soundtrack-only affair that is genuinely catchy and rocking. It also has one of Pavement's best/worst videos ever, but that's a tale for another time. Elsewhere we get a few stray outtakes and compilation appearances that don't amount to much--'Soul Food' especially--while the live material is completely great. 'Fight This Generation' comes in a long, screechy-flute-enhanced version, giving people a glimpse into the way the band would sloppily stretch and break the songs live, all while Malkmus ad-libs new lyrics or just stream-of-consciousness variations of what was on the album. The band's penchant for throwing random tangents is shown in the 'Golden Boys/Candylad' pairing and later with the jam they do before busting into 'Box Elder', one of those weird moments where you're not sure if they're really trying or not.

When all is said and done, Wowee Zowee still remains my favorite Pavement album and one of my favorite albums, period. With the Sordid Sentinels reissue, I have even more reason to love it, and this era of Pavement in general. Yet I would be a liar if I said that everyone is going to love this album. Most people will probably listen to it once or twice, wish the band had removed 4 or 5 songs and shuffled the tracklisting around, and then go back to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. But for those who persevere and find sprawling, messy albums that display a band's full talent and personality appealing, there is nothing quite like Wowee Zowee to get you through the day.

Primer: Pavement Part 3- Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: L.A.'s Desert Origins

I don't listen to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain anymore. Oh, sure, I do bust it out from time to time and play it, but I'm rarely actively listening to it. It goes in one ear and comes out the other and I can subconsciously feel the changes and the different songs, but the album has become so ingrained in my psyche that I take it for granted.

If you were going to play a Pavement album to try to get someone into the band, Crooked Rain would be it. Sure, Brighten The Corners is a lot more mellow and easy going, but it's also not as good as Crooked Rain. Rather, this album is the sound of Pavement forming into a true band that is both inventive and tips its hat to forefathers at the same time. Along with concurrent releases by, say, Sebadoh, the album also helped cement the mid 90s indie rock sound of clean guitars juxtaposed with distorted ones, and a wide ranging sound that draws inspiration from 70s punk rock, 80s hardcore, 80s indie rock, and classic rock.

'Silence Kid', often erroneously titled 'Silence Kit', opens the album with the band tuning up before the memorable rush of cowbell-driven-guitars kicks in. This really is one of those songs that you never get sick of and the difference between it and even the band's last release, the Watery, Domestic EP is huge. Much happened in Pavement land between these times, though: original drummer and producer Gary Young quit the band (or was fired, depending on who you ask) and was replaced by both friend-of-the-band Steve West and ancillary backup musician/road manager Bob Nastonovich, the latter of whom often had to keep time on a mini drum kit during concerts when Young became too drunk or antic happy to function. Steve West has a much more classically oriented full rock sound, fitting these songs like a glove; at the same time, the songs themselves just sound bigger and more cooked up, rather than the brilliant scribbles of Slanted & Enchanted. Scott Kannberg aka Spiral Stairs also makes more of a noticeable contribution, particularly with his first lead vocal appearance on 'Hit The Plane Down', which is one of those love-it-or-hate-it songs. Personally I don't think it fits the album at all, but I'm too used to it being there to really want to get rid of it.

While I should say up front that Crooked Rain is not my favorite Pavement album, it absolutely has some fantastic songs. 'Stop Breathin'' is the first instance on record of Malkmus's guitar ambitions which would later see fruition on his solo albums, a twirling, melancholic, and downright pretty solo showcase that achieves liftoff in its second half. 'Cut Your Hair' and 'Gold Soundz' being the most well known of the album's songs, you might think they have nothing to offer other than a hook to get mainstream America to buy Crooked Rain. Not so. If you haven't heard these songs in awhile, or just remember them as boring and accessible, give them another spin: the irresistable "ooh ooh ohh ohh ohh" chorus of 'Cut Your Hair' just gets better with age, while the rich melodies and skewed lyrics of 'Gold Soundz' make for great hanging-with-friends-in-the-Spring-or-Summer music. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention 'Heaven Is A Truck', which is the album's hidden gem. It also happens to be one of Malkmus's tenderest and most poetic songs, and apparently something of a favorite of his--seeing him perform it, solo and acoustic, at the Pitchfork festival last year was like watching an author do a reading of what they consider one of their best works.

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was released in a deluxe edition reissue a few years ago. Much like the Slanted & Enchanted reissue, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: L.A.'s Desert Origins adds a disc and a half of bonus material, most of which is unavailable elsewhere. While it's nowhere near as good as the first reissue's bonus material, it's still the version to buy. The first disc's extra stuff mostly amounts to B-sides, all of which you'll listen to a few times and forget about. 'Coolin' By Sound' would have made a better choice for the album as a Spiral Stairs song instead of 'Hit The Plane Down', though, and 'Strings of Nashville' is a gorgeous and quiet ballad that may take you off guard. Disc two is where the money is at: a handful of songs from the scrapped sessions the band did with Gary Young, a host of outtakes and song sketches, and a Peel session to cap it all off. Tracks 2 through 8 were from the aforementioned Young session and reveal what the album might have turned out like with Young still in the band and producing. They simply don't sound right, and while that may be a "I'm too used to the album as it would turn out" thing, 'Range Life', 'Stop Breathin'', and 'Ell Ess Two' (later renamed 'Elevate Me Later') sound rushed and lightweight in any context.

What will most please fans is the remainder of the disc, which has some great unreleased material and plays like a mini-album. Along with a piano heavy alternate mix of 'Heaven Is A Truck' and early versions of songs that would turn up on Wowee Zowee, we get a glimpse into the Pavement songwriting playbook with the sketches like 'Rug Rat' and 'Dark Ages.' I find these fascinating because I love Malkmus's tossed off songs and lyrical ad-libs, but everyone else's mileage will vary. After the palette cleansing, sad, and appropriately titled 'Instrumental', the Peel session closes the disc with 'Brink of the Clouds' and 'Tartar Martyr', equally good Malkmus and Spiral Stairs unreleased songs; an early version of 'Pueblo'; and 'The Sutcliffe Catering Song' which will show up on the Wowee Zowee deluxe edition titled 'Easily Fooled.' Anyway, it's a nice cap to the reissue, and every bit as "wow, I've never heard these before and they're awesome!!" as the Peel sessions from Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe.

But I digress. It's easy for me to recommend this album to anyone because it's the one that even people who don't really like Pavement can enjoy. If you're looking to expand your horizons, or go back in time to when indie rock was the alternative to alternative rock, then Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is the album for you.

Primer: Pavement Part 2- Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe

If you'll excuse me for opening a post in such a lavish, proclamatory way, I just want to get this off my chest: Slanted & Enchanted is one of the best albums ever released and it's next to impossible to imagine the development of indie rock from the 90s onward without it. Whew. I feel better.

Though still a band not nearly as popular and well known as we music critics make them out to be, nevertheless, during the 90s Pavement were the carriers of the great white indie rock hope. This mantle having been placed on them with the release, in 1992, of Slanted & Enchanted, an album that both significantly improved upon their first three EPs and 'Summer Babe' single as collected on Westing (By Musket and Sextant) AND blew the doors out on the band's songwriting, pushing songs in new and strange directions. Witness 'Conduit For Sale!' in all its dust raising glory, alternating between cries of "I'm trying!! I'm trying!!" and Stephen Malkmus's stream of consciousness, almost 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'-esque quick talking absurdisms. Witness 'Here', their first "ballad", which moves in a circular fashion while maintaining the same sublime drum and guitar line during its entire duration. Witness 'Fame Throwa', perhaps the album's most unique creation, a cinematic spy tale of two disparate pieces that sling back and forth neatly. At least I think that's what is going on...

One could talk about each of the album's original 14 songs, but other than 'Our Singer', which is one of my favorite and most unsung tracks from the album, you either know these songs already or you have no clue. If you don't have a clue, you really should. Early 90s indie rock doesn't come much better than Slanted & Enchanted, and while you may at first be turned off by the bits of noise or the screaming/yelping on some songs, give the album enough time to win you over and you'll have a true favorite for years to come.

In 2002, to mark the 10th anniversary of the album, Matador released the Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe reissue. Spread across 2 CDs are the original album, assorted B-sides, two Peel sessions, the Watery, Domestic EP released shortly after the album, B-sides from that EP, and a full concert from late '92. This really is the version of the album to buy even if it will you cost a bit more money. The Peel sessions alone are a wealth of mostly unreleased Pavement gems, from the plaintive, cleaned up version of 'Secret Knowledge of Backroads' that would be seen on the Silver Jews' The Arizona Record to the addictive "see myself come running back" call and response vocals on 'Circa 1762' to the suffocating atmosphere and strangled shrieks of 'The List of Dorms', they're all unique additions to the Slanted era.

Of course the big draws are the full concert and the Watery, Domestic EP. The concert is more or less what you'd expect. It's mostly "more frantic and rocking" versions of Slanted era songs. However, it should be noted that the concert also contains songs from the Westing collection in significantly better form, including 'Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent.' As for Watery, Domestic, well, it's rightfully considered the best EP Pavement ever put out--though I do have a soft spot for Pacific Trim. 'Texas Never Whispers' begins with a feedback shrill organ before descending into the cool opening line "here we go/she's on a hidden tableaux", which is probably the only time I've heard "tableaux" used in a song. 'Frontwards' is one of the band's signature non-album tracks, an almost Weezer-esque mid-tempo mellow rocker with the memorably uncharacteristic line "well I've got style/miles and miles/so much style that it's wasted." 'Lions (Linden)' is a slight-but-good ditty while 'Shoot The Singer (1 Sick Verse)' helps point the way to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain with its (kind of) fuller band sound and "da da da da" vocals/Malkmus ad-libbing something during the ending. Oddly enough, 'So Stark (You're A Skyscraper)' and 'Greenlander' didn't make the cut for the EP though I think most people agree they're as good if not better that the last two songs on the EP. 'Greenlander' is just one of those songs you can end a mixtape's side on and feel good about every single time.

Slanted & Enchanted occupies this weird space for me, because it's neither my favorite Pavement album (that would be Wowee Zowee) nor the one I would consider the best place to start for newbies (that would be Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain). However, I would stick my neck out and call it Pavement's most important album, because of everything it did for the band (proved their potential, justified the initial attention and praise) and the indie rock world (a landmark release, both for the "scene" itself and now-powerhouse, then-brand-new label Matador). Setting all of this aside, as one should ultimately, Slanted & Enchanted is an album that you have to thumb through a thesaurus to come up with new and interesting superlatives for because it's all been said. You simply must have it, and the Luxe & Reduxe version of the album is worth every penny.

Primer: Pavement Part 1- Westing (By Musket and Sextant)

In today's indie rock/blogosphere "scene", where bands seemingly spring up overnight based on recordings that aren't even available for purchase yet, it's hard to think back to a time when bands could get huge interest in them based on something they had actually released--maybe even on a vinyl record(!!). The late 80s/early 90s were a time when bands would self finance singles or EPs, press a thousand copies for friends, send some out to record labels and fanzines, and be satisfied with whatever attention they got. Often there was a great mystique about a band because no one knew everything about them within the first minute of their 15 minutes of fame. Into this golden era rode Pavement, a band that people knew so little about some fanzines mistakenly switched around the band's name with the EP's title or their made-up record label, Treble Kicker.

I won't go into a history lesson because there already exists both a great film (Slow Century) and a book (Perfect Sound Forever) about Pavement. However, I will say that Westing (By Musket and Sextant) represents a valuable reminder of just how fully formed Pavement were at conception. And, also, how far they came. Westing collects the band's first three EPs and the 'Summer Babe' single along with a few stray tracks, all material that predates the Slanted & Enchanted album.

It's difficult to set aside history and try to come to this music with fresh ears, in the same way that you can't listen to, say, Revolver or Kind of Blue with virgin ears. I'm not saying that this music is near the level of those releases, but similarly, I can't really listen to Westing and pretend that I haven't heard everything Pavement and Stephen Malkmus have done since. However, it would be hard not to be excited about this band even based on the first EP, Slay Tracks (1933-1969). 'You're Killing Me' starts with blasts of noise before repetitive guitar chording and static swamp the mix. Malkmus sings in his soon-to-be patented nasally alto. And hey presto, it's the Pavement you know and love, only younger and more lo-fi. 'Box Elder' is a Pavement classic, one that the band apparently played throughout its history. 'She Believes' is another early favorite, with a chugging, insistent guitar line and Gary Young's emphatic, primitive drumming.

Next up is Demolition Plot J-7 which begins with a personal favorite in 'Forklift.' A bit messier than its subsequent live renditions, the "ba ba ba ba ba" backing chorus still shines through the murk. 'Spizzle Trunk' features keyboards of some kind, along with a great guitar/drums break in between verses. Other than 'Perfect Depth', which is a hidden gem, I feel like this EP is the weakest of the three collected here. The other songs are too underdeveloped, and sound like the aimless slabs of noise or riffing they are.

Perfect Sound Forever represents a step up both in terms of consistency and inventiveness. You can really see the seeds of the 'Summer Babe' single/Slanted & Enchanted album here. 'Heckler Spray' is a fun and rocking instrumental that builds up steam for 'From Now On', another hidden gem in the band's early discography, and one that lightens the band's sound enough that you can imagine a dubiously "with it" record executive saying to himself "if we took out the noisy guitars on the chorus breaks, we could push this as grunge!!" The band, however, prove themselves unpredictable with the odd, almost Sonic Youth-esque opening of 'Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent' which, admittedly, appears in a better, more energetic form on the deluxe reissue of Slanted & Enchanted. Still, the band is trying something new, and it works great: a weird, avant-guitar intertwining opening and then a mellower second half. The other two noteworthy songs on here are 'Debris Slide' and 'Home', the former of which is a brilliant and stupid sing-along, the latter of which has some of Malkmus's earliest and best examples of the way his lyrics can be lucid and bizarre yet somehow still affect you emotionally.

Fans of Slanted & Enchanted will be interested to see how this version of 'Summer Babe' differs from the so-called "Winter Version" on the album. Well, it's all mixed a bit lower, but otherwise there isn't much difference. Then there's 'Mercy: The Laundromat', which is also known as 'Mercy Snack: The Laundromat' and simply 'Mercy Snack.' Either way, as a B-side it is every bit the equal of the Slanted tracks, and has a nice in-joke with the line "I'm regular/I'm treble kicked." Everything about this song is prime early Pavement, from the surreal lyrics to the peaking, white noise guitars to the caveman simple drums on the breaks. 'Baptist Blacktick' is another experiment in songwriting that pays off, with a great moment where Malkmus screams out the lyrics. 'My First Mine' is a song that I like a lot, but it's definitely B-side grist. Westing closes with 'My Radio', a song whose origins I'm unsure of, but definitely sounds like something recorded during the three EPs, all white noise guitars and lo-fi production.

Though as a huge fan of Pavement I'm tempted to say this compilation is essential, in reality, it isn't. Much of this material is either collected on the deluxe reissue of Slanted & Enchanted (often in better form) or is only going to appeal to hardcore fans and/or those who love this era's noise/pop/indie/lo-fi aesthetic. In short, you should get this once you've heard everything else.

Album of the Week: Stephen Malkmus: Real Emotional Trash

The last time I saw Stephen Malkmus, he was playing solo and acoustic at the Pitchfork Music Festival last summer. He seemed very relaxed and sloppy, which are two things I normally associate with both his solo albums as well as his much celebrated, loved, and (sometimes) hated former band, Pavement. However, his performance was also brilliant in its way: his between song was banter clever, funny, and self deprecating, but his acoustic playing seemed frustrated and at times awkward. It occurred to me then that Stephen Malkmus was, has, and always will be an electric kind of guy, and I couldn't wait to hear what his next album would turn out like.

One of the standard cards that music critics can play is the "band album." I realize that this may not be as 'common knowledge' as I assume it is, so let me explain. When a band or solo artists releases a "band album", it typically means that the album is tightly played but jammy, as if the band had played the songs for awhile and were familiar enough with them to stretch them to their breaking points and/or add new little emphases or accents here and there. Real Emotional Trash is all of these things: it's played extremely well, but it stretches out and has many little bits and pieces that feel thrown in because the band were a bit bored and needed to spice things up.

Anyone who follows Stephen Malkmus had to see this coming. Not only did Pig Lib point the way to this kind of prog rock/jam bandy/classic rocky music, but tracks from other solo works ('No More Shoes' says hello) did too. Hell, you could trace his particular inclination for this kind of thing back to 'Fillmore Jive' off Pavement's second album if you wanted to. Anyway, indie rock and extended guitar soloing are not mutually exclusive. For starters, Dinosaur Jr. and Built To Spill would have something to say on the matter, and then there's My Morning Jacket, who skirt the line between jam band and indie rock pretty finely. But I digress.

The real story behind Real Emotional Trash is that it is Malkmus's coming out party as a guitar hero as well as his tip-of-the-hat to his sometimes credited band, the Jicks. Though indie rock has its stalwart guitar heroes--from the noise masters Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth to Neil Youngish J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. to good-at-everything Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline of Wilco--it's only now that we can truly say Stephen Malkmus has made a point of foregrounding his chops. It will take a live album to really see if he stands up to the old masters of classic rock and beyond but, for a studio album, it's easily his most guitar centric. At the same time, it's the first one that really gives any kind of credit to the Jicks, his backing band. Though their lineup has shuffled over the past 4 releases, in ex-Sleater Kinney drummer Janet Weiss he has found a sympathetic musical foil not known since the early Pavement/Gary Young or mid-to-late Pavement Steve West days. That's not to discredit the other Jicks, who offer solid-but-unremarkable bass and brilliant-but-understated keyboards.

Anyway, let's cut to the chase. The title track is a flat out epic, building steam and segueing into a rocking second half--I'm almost tempted to let Malkmus know that he's not in a jam band and he isn't supposed to do this kind of thing (especially on a studio album) but the result is so visceral and, frankly, awesome that I keep my mouth shut. 'Baltimore' is a 6+ minute Malkmus showcase, with guitars stacking on top of guitars to continually keep the rock going. Meanwhile, the less indulgent side of Malkmus shows up in the short, pop-ish 'Gardenia' with its female backing vocals that recall the brilliant 'Us' from Pig Lib (and make one wish he'd contrast his voice with others more often) and the early album ballady 'Cold Son.' Finally, there's 'Elmo Delmo', which combines Malkmus's love for absurdist/poetic wordplay with whip sharp music acrobatics, effectively combining his two artistic spheres (jammy guitar hero and weird indie rock poet) in one of the album's best decadent treats.

At this point, if you're a Stephen Malkmus fan, I feel like you've either accepted the aforementioned sides of his musical spheres or you prefer one over the other. If you can't stand his instrumental grandstanding, then Real Emotional Trash represents his nadir in the same way that Face The Truth felt like his best album since Pavement's Wowee Zowee. For the rest of us, Real Emotional Trash is just another great solo album that expands the Malkmus book and expounds upon the jammy/guitar hero ploy that Pig Lib only hinted at.

Times New Viking Sound Like Shit

It's exceedingly rare for me to listen to an album and really, truly, want to love it but be unable to utterly adore it because it actively tries to make me not like it. But such is the situation I find myself in with Rip It Off by Times New Viking.

Almost everything you read about this band will say something along the lines of "beneath the lo-fi production, treble-y hiss, and red line distortion lie songs of startling melody and creativity." That's true, but it's often offered as a kind of excuse. The truth is, in 2008, signed to Matador, Times New Viking must have purposely chosen to release an album that sounds this bad. It reminds me of early Pavement as heard on the Westing (By Musket And Sextant) compilation: below average to miserable sound quality that still doesn't ruin the quality of the songs. The difference there is that it was Pavement's first few releases, and with their proper recording debut on Matador, their sound hadn't changed so much as it was refined to a keen edge and you could actually hear it.

On Rip It Off, loud, distorted guitars, thudding drums, and the occasional organ chunks grind their way to the top of the mix, trading space with barely audible vocals. On one hand, the sheer visceral sound of the album has me pumping my fist and shouting "indie rock finally has balls again!!" On the other hand, if the songs didn't sound like they were recorded on the monophonic cassette voice recorder I have in my closet somewhere, I would like it a lot more. Again, my assumption is that the band intentionally wanted the songs to sound so noisy and lo-fi, and I simply don't think it works. When the most shocking moment of your noise-y indie rock album is the part where the sound cleans up for the acoustic ending of 'End Of All Things', something is wrong with your aesthetic.

In the end, I give Times New Viking some grace points. I begrudgingly respect any band who release something that sounds so defiantly lo-fi and noisy in this day and age, not to mention with song titles like 'Times New Viking Vs. Yo La Tengo.' Maybe next time if they meet us halfway, and let us hear the great songs they have buried beneath all the crap, they'll truly have something worth praising.

No Update Today (Tonight??)

Sorry, I got distracted because I had to work from 10 to 7 and then I was watching Mythbusters and installed Steam on my laptop in order to download the BioShock demo. Also I drank some scotch and just chugged a Steel Reserve.

Also, reading up on Super Smash Brothers Brawl leaks. I don't know what everybody's deal is. The characters yet to be revealed aren't that amazing, true, but shit...fucking Solid Snake and Sonic are in the game. How much more batshit crazy fun could this game get?! I want it ever so much, like a mother must want for her baby when she goes home from the hospital before her progeny.

Go listen to Pavement. Stephen Malkmus is my god.

I'll update tomorrow, I promise.