Search - Stephen Malkmus :: Real Emotional Trash

Get back to us Steve when you have some songs

Morris's Codex | Phil-a-dump-ia, PA | 12/16/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Malkmus work has been widely inconsistent over the last few years, from a borderline awesome debut to a lame second album then a slight return to form then this boring jam inspired work. What Malkmus calling card since he started in his Pavement days was something I will call his "malkmus charm," which is entirely missing in these songs.



I know I will get slagged by Malkmus disciples who believe that there is nothing he puts out that it is subpar. I've been a fan for over 15 years (wow, trust me, that shocks even me). Pavement for the all the people who never got to see them is close to what his solo career is, sometimes brilliant, sometimes mundane. I've seen him around 50 times in concert from pavement to his solo years, which might make me one of his "biggest fans" doing a review.



What I hate about this album? I loathe jam bands. I loathe Dave Matthews and Pfish and the whole load of that rubbish. This work tries to do the jam with indie cool but it does not work, heck, lets face it, if Malkmus name was not on it, I would not have brought it. After roughly five listens, there is basically nothing memorable on this album. I will give it some more listens, but for now, it ain't working for me.



two stars because it is still Stephen which means it is better then 99% of music out there"

If ever there was a grower

Gregory W. Locke | Seattle, WA | 03/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Before the release of this, Stephen Malkmus' fourth album following the breakup of his name-making band, Pavement, finding a relation between the quality of the man's output to how much control he had over the writing, playing and recording of his songs was inevitable. Pavement, surely a spirited crew of chums to the end, could hardly keep up with Malkmus' talent following the beautiful mess that was Wowee Zowee. Likewise, his first and third solo albums - the ones he wrote, played and recorded almost entirely by himself - were better than his second, Pig Lib, which was great, but at times uneven. Real Emotional Trash, Malkmus and Company's first album since the addition of Sleater-Kinney and Quasi drummer Janet Weiss, is the most collaborative Malkmus-related album since he and Spiral Stairs were destroying guitars in Gary Young's home studio in 1991. Because of this, yes, it's different than any other Malkmus project, but don't worry, it's also very good and - along with Slanted and Enchanted and Stephen Malkmus - his most cohesive record, playing through with a very organic, live-in-studio feel, a rare attribute no other Malkmus album can wholly claim.



Does this added element of collaboration water down the Malkmus-isms that make his records so special? Maybe. Maybe a little bit here and there, but not necessarily in a way that taints the brilliance of his craft. After a few listens, the meaty-as-hell guitar riffs and slow-pounding classic rock rhythms that open the album come off as an anthem for a new kind of Jick. Malkmus rips all over opener "Dragonfly Pie," showing that he has no problem keeping up with Weiss' every pounding expectation, proving that the noodle-y winks spread throughout his past were no joke. The song, like any good Malkmus offering, inevitably turns silly, with our man splitting time between breaking out his familiar girly voice for obscure lyrics like "shake me off the knife because I want to go home" and tearing through heavy, dirty guitar solos. The stoner/pop duality of this song sets the stage for Real Emotional Trash, an album that sees Malkmus and his Jicks playing always organic rock n' roll that sounds exactly how an album from a crew of 90s rockers bent on both 70s music and the quirkier side of Brit-pop should.



The seven-minute "Hopscotch Willie" is a surprisingly fluent trip, harboring Malkmus' least obscure lyrics since his eponymous solo debut. Still a clinic in obscurity compared to the normal college radio tune, "Willie" manages to be lengthy without ever feeling loopy, mixing solos and movements in a pseudo-prog, kitchen-sink-Zeppelin sort of way we haven't yet heard from Malkmus. This is not surprising, really, considering the ever-growing amount of goofy guitar noodling on his records. Next up is "Cold Son," one of Trash's shortest offerings at just under four minutes. Here Malkmus again splices his stoner/pop loves into one, crafting a trippy-but-poppy song made to satisfy Wowee Zowee-era Pavement enthusiasts.



A diverse approach to the Jick brand of stoner-pop keeps Real Emotional Trash's songs from ever sounding too similar. Live-in-studio sound in tow, songs like "Baltimore" and, especially, "Real Emotional Trash" are at fist challenging, clocking in at around seven and 10 minutes each. "Baltimore," Trash's default lead single, will appeal to the "jam kids" Malkmus himself snarkily sang about in the mid-90s. Full of silver-tongued lyrical poetics and what appears again to be a prog-rock approach to long-form pop, the song feels more like a journey than a jam, trading off memorable one-liners, hooks and guitar solos to sweetly stitched-together results. The album's title track, likewise, attempts to be epic without ever falling into the loopy category. Malkmus knows what a jam is, surely, but doesn't play by the rules. Rather than wanking around indulgently on his guitar, "Real Emotional Trash" sees Malkmus working in chapters, building a cohesive song-for-the-ages that displays his self-taught guitar prowess better than anything else he's recorded in his nearly 20-year professional career.



But, like we were saying, this is an album built on diversity - one that contains a few pure pop ditties. "Gardenia," for one, is unapologetically bouncy and sugarcoated with "bop-bop-ba-da-da-da" backing vocals; it's the kind of wordy, joyous pop song that only Stephen Malkmus could dream up. Along with the aforementioned "Cold Son" and classic sounding "We Can't Help You" (think Wilco's recent "What Light"), "Gardenia" reminds listeners of the man's initial genius. He's a master of left-field pop and, believe it or not, he's somehow found a way to take said simple genre's backbone and make it breathe. He's writing songs that he and his band will surely be able to open up on stage when they feel like it - songs that, without being too "jammy" on record, are made to grow. Pop songs made perfect for changing each time they're played, kind of like The Grateful Dead's American Beauty, only completely different.



Collaborative, heavy-in-sound and full of weirdo slacker charm, Real Emotional Trash is another great chapter in the long book of SxMx. Be it a Pavement, Silver Jews or Jicks record, Leather McWhip refuses to do the same thing twice. Calling this one of the very best records of his career - if only for its ambition, unique yet subtle genre-melding and skillful playing - would not be inaccurate. Calling it the first great album of 2008 is a no-brainer. (Greg Locke)"