Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Mirror Traffic

‘I caught you streaking in your Birkenstocks / A scary thought / In the 2Ks.’ As first lines of albums go they could only be from the mind of Stephen Malkmus. ‘Mirror Traffic’ is his fifth post Pavement album, one which he has described as “relatively accessible”. And, you know what, he’s right.

After all the hysteria died down following the Pavement reunion it was back to the day job with the Jicks and it sounds like a man with a point to prove. ‘Mirror Traffic’ is creative, focused - hell, you could almost call it a pop album.

The choice of producer may have had something to do with this. For ‘Mirror Traffic’ he’s enlisted the services of Beck, in what is seems like an attempt to cut down his guitar wig out tendencies. It seems to have been a shrewd move: it makes for the most direct and immediate album he’s made since Pavement split.

For someone who at times has been criticised for being too aloof, these songs buzz unashamedly with warmth and melody. And there’s a purpose, there very little self-indulgence here and nearly half the songs come in at under 3 minutes.

That’s not to say everything has changed. His languid, drawled vocals and way with a witty rhyming couplet haven’t disappeared either. You may have already heard ‘Senator’, the most Pavement-esque song on the album and its ‘blowjob’ refrain. Yet it’s the false, cooler than thou narrator in ‘Forever 28’ who gets some of the best lines of the record: ‘No one is your perfect fit / I don’t believe in all that shit’.

The fuzzy rush of ‘Stick Figures in Love’ is another highlight and the off kilter punk ‘Tune Grief’ along with bouncy sunset riffing of single ‘Tigers’ show Malkmus can take a range of ideas and get them to hang together as a coherent record.

However, the most surprising highlights are the tender moments. ‘No One Is (As I Are Be)’, with its delicately plucked guitar and Beck arranged brass embellishment, is not really like anything Malkmus has done before and it’s beautiful. Elsewhere ‘Long Hard Book’ and ‘Asking Price’ are understated yet spellbinding.

Only with ‘Brain Gallop’ does the album sag slightly. Even the filler (hello ‘Jumblegloss’) helps to break up the album and make the journey feel more complete.

If ‘Mirror Traffic’ proves anything it is that Stephen Malkmus is still in love with music. The range of sounds and creativity on this record show a musician maturing but not running out of ideas on how to create his own sound and move further out of the shadow of the era-defining band he was once part of.