Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
You're a gardenia, 25 Mar 2008
Ever since Pavement broke up, Stephen Malkmus has just gotten odder and odder. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
And he really doesn't disappoint in his fourth full-length solo album with the Jicks, "Real Emotional Trash," which strikes a brilliant balance between the sounds of "Pig Lib" and "Face the Truth." Malkmus preserves his insane lyrics and fuzz-freakery, but wraps them around some gloriously eccentric psychedelic rock songs.
It opens with a dark, sludgy bassline, festooned in buzzing riffs, with Malkmus droning wearily, "Of all my stoned digressions/Some have mutated into the truth." But the slow grimy grinds suddenly speeds up... and melts away into a sublime little pop melody ("Taken with pride like a dragonfly/dragonfly wants a piece of pie!") that alternates between stoner riffs and delightfully sunny harmonium melodies.
The title track is a ten-minute bounce of peppy, sputtering guitar rock split by a drowsy, ringing expanse, and fading out to a meandering little guitar melody, as if he were falling asleep at the strings.
But he hasn't, because it's just the start of a whole new string of songs -- quirky buzzy pop, loopy little experimental rockers, and a lot of meandering rock'n'roll with fuzzy hard edges and drips of keyboard. It finishes up with two really delicious little songs -- the sunny shimmers of "We Can't Help You" and the intimate psychfolky sound of "Wicked Wanda."
When listening to a Stephen Malkmus album, I'm never entirely sure what he's crafting. "Real Emotional Trash" happily wobbles between pop epic, experimental concept album, and quirky indie fuzz-rocker without committing to any one sound, and Malkmus does a pretty solid job interweaving them together. This is very much his style, but striking a balance between quirk and listener-friendliness.
And he mostly sticks to what has worked for him in the past -- pleasantly meandering rockers and peppy pop, given some odd edges. His ringing guitar riffs are simply astounding, twisting and stretching beyond what you'd think the instrument could manage -- along with the Jicks' flexible instrumentation. The instrumentation is a fluid, glorious stream of piano, drumming, fuzz bass and rippling hollow keyboard, as in the beautiful opening of "We Can't Help You."
Don't worry, he doesn't just retread. There are some psychedelic twists here and there, while "Elmo Delmo" and the title track both have stretches of spacey, buzzy prog-rock in the middle. While not as accessible as the straightforward rockers, they're still pretty brilliant.
And Malkmus genuinely sounds like he's having fun, as his mellow voice darts in and out of the music. He can be murmuring one minute, and then yowl out at the listener the next. And as expected, his lyrics are really weird and nonsensical, but with some very clever moments here and there ("Who is in the sand?/the world is my oyster/I feel like a nympho stuck in a cloister"). Chuckle.
The title of "Real Emotional Trash" might give you the wrong idea, because Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks' latest is anything but trash. It's polished, weird, and very endearing.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great songs, great playing but..., 18 Mar 2008
I suppose the "frailty" of Malkmus's voice is part of his charm but it really stops this album from being a 5 star beezer for me. The songs are multi layered and melodic yet have jagged edges especially when he wigs out on his geetar! The lyrics are predictably sharp and wacky on occasion so some times it all comes together splendidly and Cold Sun especially hits the mark.
A grower
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Likeably wacked out pseudo-psychedelic indie wig-out....., 30 Mar 2008
Crikey this one has divided the critics and then some, a few good to excellent reviews outnumbered by those that call it "self-indulgent". Myself as usual am not sure what they are banging on about, presumably the length of the guitar solos or something. I've never been a huge fan of Malkmus or Pavement due to his/their (in my opinion) deliberately obscurantist and self-consciously "hip" lyrical conceits which might sound great when you are a student but somewhat less so at a few years distance. However I've always liked Malkmus' avowed admiration for late '60s psychedelia and I think that's what this album is a tribute too through his own fractured "indie mind-set" prism. As usual the lyrics are self-conscious nonsense unless someone wants to set me straight however he has really gone to town on this one with his inimitable guitar playing which is by turns half late 80's Sonic Youth and half late 60's Spirit. This is precisely why I like this album and haven't been much impressed with his earlier efforts (especially his noughties solo ones), simply because the emphasis is on his guitar playing which is so much more expressive than his singing/lyrics despite what the indie cognoscenti might have you think. The tunes too are largely memorable and even hummable (!) on occasion and so what if his lyrics are lousy the music has "feel" in the old sense of the word and I've always thought that's what has been lacking with Malkmus with his often swarmy, smart-alec, "look at how much cleverer I am than you" attitude. So in conclusion if you've never been that much of a Pavement/Malkmus fan this might just be the album for you (if you are interested which you probably aren't after 18 years...) but if you think he's some sort of outrageous lyrical genius then perhaps you should skip this one. Myself I hope he follows his muse and continues in this direction and dumps the self-conscious "I'm smart me" attitude that has plagued his work in the past, probably a forlorn hope though considering the ambivalent critical reaction he's endured this time around.
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