Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Sparkle Hard

Pitchfork 80

On his fetching seventh solo album, the witty and digressive songwriting of Stephen Malkmus becomes newly and delightfully grounded in the present day.

The Guardian 80

(Domino)

Whether in Pavement, Silver Jews or with the Jicks, Stephen Malkmus has never been shy of ploughing his own musical furrow, and this seventh album with the latter is a case in point. At first, the songs don’t seem to follow logic or convention. There are no archetypal big choruses; guitar patterns hurtle around like busy mice. However, Malkmus’s fuzzy logic soon takes hold, and seemingly off-kilter arrangements emerge as highly accessible, killer tunes. Over 11 of them, his sonic palette extends from cosmic and country rock to sun-drenched neo-psychedelia and prog-pop, with Television-style guitar virtuosity and XTC-type jerky rhythms. Cast Off starts with a piano reminiscent of David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, but blasts into distorted pop. Refute, a playful duet with Kim Gordon and the strings-embellished Solid Silk are lovely. Middle America, another of his sweetest melodies, features the sudden admission, “Men are scum, I won’t deny”. Malkmus is not overly known as a political songwriter, but the state of the union also obliquely informs Bike Lane, bass-grinding new wave in which the 2015 death of Freddie Gray from injuries sustained in police custody (“his life expectancy was max 25”) is drily cast against the officers’ down time (“kick off your jackboots, it’s time to unwind!”). Like the Fall or Captain Beefheart, Malkmus’s use of language is idiosyncratic (“numbskull chip off some old block, dagger glasses for the kid” anybody?) but demands immersion, while – at 51 – his musical gifts are as bountiful as ever.

The Guardian 80

(Domino)

For a man who recently declared “I’m basically over”, Stephen Malkmus sounds surprisingly animated on his seventh album with the Jicks. Now 51, the former Pavement frontman still possesses the qualities that distinguished his years with the 90s band – an off-kilter sensibility and a love of language – but there is a newfound readiness to confront the iniquities of the real world. “Men are scum, I won’t deny,” he sings on the dreamy Middle America, a burst of fury built around an ageless chugging riff, while Bike Lane deals with the death of Freddie Gray, a victim of police brutality in Baltimore (“Kick off your jackboots, it’s time to unwind”).

Elsewhere, as if to underline his status as one of indie rock’s great eccentrics, Malkmus makes a decent fist of orchestral pop on the frisky, staccato-like Brethren, and severs all ties with conventional songwriting, revealing an aptitude for space rock (Difficulties/Let Them Eat Vowels). And if a duet with Kim Gordon (Refute) suggests that Malkmus wants to wallow in the past and reprise the woozy rock with which he made his name, its lilting country melody indicates otherwise.

Drowned In Sound 80

The overriding tone of this collection of songs is one of warmth. It’s there in the vocals in the affable, conversational style of the beginning of opener ‘Cast Off’ and the sweet delivery of ‘Middle America’, in the mellow stabs of duelling guitar in ‘Future Suite’, and in the gentle acoustic sing-song tune of ‘Solid Silk’.

Running alongside that, though, is a hugely entertaining cut-and-switch grab-bag of styles and moods. So one minute you’ll be settling in to a low-key piano-led intro only to be hit – bam! – with a superbly psychedelic guitar wig-out, with a spot of Malkmus’ characteristic yelp/shout vocal just to keep you really on your toes (‘Cast Off’). ‘Kite’ starts out like a low-key live acoustic performance then smacks you around the face with more of that out-there guitar, an improvised solo rounding out the song in fine, fried style. Closing track ‘Difficulties/Let Them Eat Vowels’ acknowledges its hybrid nature in its name – more like two tracks spliced together (the first another quiet/LOUD banger, the second an extended jam). The band sound scratchy and intense on ‘Bike Lane’, yet light and (that word again) warm on ‘Refute’, ‘Middle America’ and ‘Solid Silk’.

Some of the best moments on this pretty great collection come (for this old Pavement fan, at least) in the moments where echoes of Malkmus’ old band emerge. The opening guitar chords of ‘Middle America’ – one of the album’s best songs – instantly evoke ‘Here’, one of Pavement’s most tender moments; and this track, too manages that trick of being sweet, tuneful, gentle and uplifting whilst still being sufficiently oblique to sidestep easy pigeonholing. It even succeeds in making the phrase “May you be shitfaced the day you die” sound like a benign, charming wish for someone.

‘Solid Silk’ has a similar charm, accompanied by a pace and vibe more akin to easy listening, and some superb sound-nice-but-I-have-no-idea-what-they-mean lyrics in the best surrealist Stephen Malkmus tradition – “it’s lug eat lug”, “cynical pinnacle”. When he sings that he “scratched out a doggerel verse or two”, he is perhaps being overly modest.

Kim Gordon’s wonderful guest appearance on ‘Refute’ is smart, funny and sweet. A subversive version of a him-and-her break-up song, Gordon’s worn, wise, world-weary vocal lends itself perfectly to her tale of au pair seduction and rejection of “middle class values and normalcy”, while Malkmus’ scene-setting verse sets himself up as the wronged party – “a man who dared to fall head over heels”. They end the song, sounding like wise elder statespeople of affairs of the heart, with a warning to “the children” that “the world doesn’t want you”, yet somehow still manage to leave the listener with a smile on her face.

For someone who’s been in the game so long, Stephen Malkmus and his band show no signs of either running out of creativity or falling back on former glories. When this album is good it’s superb – probably the Jicks’ finest yet; and when it’s less so – less focused, more haphazard and wilfully out-there – it’s still pretty damn great as well.