Pig Lib

Generally bands like the Jicks are manufactured purely to give an insecure control freak ex-lead singer something to hide behind after he breaks the old band up and tries to make it on his own – think, say, Franks Black’s Catholics. They make like a gang but play what they’re told to play and give an impression of democracy at work which is almost invariably entirely phoney.

Not phoney enough, here, though. Stephen Malkmus has bought into collective responsibility. He has elevated the Jicks – who played on 2001’s Stephen Malkmus – to the status of collaborators on Pig Lib and the second solo album suffers as a result.

Essentially what it means is that the feel of the LP is typified by track ten, ‘1% of One’, an overwrought collective jam, a song that apparently must be powerful because it is loud, high-pitched and nine minutes long. ‘(Do Not Feed The) Oyster’, at its heart crisp and witty, is undermined by hollow guitar histrionics too… and so it goes on. Malkmus’ trademark winding melancholy melodies are almost absent.

There is lovely stuff here, though, in the subtle husky vocal of ‘Ramp Of Death’, and the springing strum of ‘Animal Midnight’. ‘Water And A Seat’ opens the album with a delicate, sinuous, gorgeous guitar line. There’s beauty but there’s some daft overblown big music. Back to benign dictatorship, Stephen.