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Stephen Malkmus Scowling faces must be the order of the day for the ex-Pavement clan. Scowling faces with stinging pickle, sour mustard and rancid anchovies by the thousand. And no side salad either, no window seat and not even a thought of a milkshake. As Malkmus himself puts it, this first lone album needn't even be considered as a solo record… more a 'continuation of Pavement, but with a different rhythm section'. Damned straight. Fear not, ye olde Pavement faithful... for those amongst your number who thought that you'd heard the last tongue in cheek chorus, eccentrically witty lyric or deliciously echoey chord change five or six months ago, you're wrong!. Surprisingly, there are no major changes from Pavement as legions of fans knew them here. Black Book saunters in where Terror Twilight left us, dewey eyed and smiling all over at the indierock band made good; however, this is a gentle hop, skip and jump forward from the strangely cute Pavement of 1998, leaving the ripped jeans and grunge cast-off sweaters of the Cut Your Hair era now long gone, possibly languishing in a charity shop near you. Malkmus' cartoon imagination whirrs into overdrive with his talk of furry Alaskan huskies and snow in Phantasies, and the sublime Jo Jo's Jacket (with that seventies Ooooeeeee chorus) deserves ten pounds of your hard earned cash alone! Really, if you were to hear this whilst waiting in a friendly airport lounge or relaxing at a friend's sophisticated boudoir, there would be little to persuade you that you weren't listening to a new Pavement LP. The (very) occasional drum machine and strange sample may give things away, but it really does seem that during all those sessions and tours with his band of old, Malkmus snuck away a few of his best ideas for himself, sprinkling them with sparkly smiley pop magic. Like young Louis Barlow, cheeky Dave Grohl and gurning Jehosefat Mascis (and hey, even Skatin' Scotty Weiland too), Smilin' Stevie Malkmus has thrown caution to the wind and proved to the sceptical indiefickle bunch that there is life after hugelysuccessfulrockband, and a fab and spangly life it is too. So hold those anchovies guys, and get me a goddamn milkshake. 9/10 Karl Cremin |
