Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
Mirror Traffic

And with Stephen, we close the circle of releases from the three "losers" par excellence, or rather the excellences of the '90s, but also a bit earlier if you want, J Mascis and Thurston Moore. With the latter, the good mr.Pavement shares the producer of his latest musical effort, that is the fourth loser, the king, the loser par excellence, Beck Hansen, and everything this little man touches/produces turns to gold, or almost.

And here we come to this little disc that opens with the almost Beck-like pop-rock, as a matter of fact, of "Tigers", with its very twisted vocals, and the full-fledged 90's motion, it is the sun of those days, which willing or not, have passed. "Senator" instead pushes the accelerator a little more, the lyrics are as irreverent as they are true, Stephen knows what the senator of the song wants, and what he wants is indeed a good blowjob, the ground covered is always that of the flourishing years of softer indie rock. "Brain Gallop" almost verges on a mothball blues-rock with even a final riff almost on loop and vocals lacquered with a slight delay. When matters get more acid, as in "Jumblegloss", the best hands of these Jicks are revealed, but it's almost a fill, just enough time to get used to it, and it's already over. And the dirty game succeeds really well for our guys, and they demonstrate it with "Spazz", where they almost stagger into punk, dirtying it with fuzz and increasing the speed adequately, and the mid-tempo blues with Tex-Mex choirs in the background is truly a delight that continues unabated after the uantùtrìfòr of "Tune Grief", with this sooooo 50's voice, a pimply Elvis out of a Stockton college soon turning into a very pissed off and bored Johnny Rotten. Also beautiful is the distorted loop of "Forever 28", which evolves into a bouncy and fun little pop that ends up "heavying" in the chorus, and that reminds me of something from Weezer. 

And so in the college of the post-indie chaos of the good old days, there stands a parade complete with awards and a podium. At the top, up there above everyone, we find Mr. Moore, followed a little lower by the white mane of the dinosaur Mascis. Below, with his shoes now too out of fashion, stands Malkmus, third but always smiling, because after all, I too would like to reach 40 and proudly wear those shoes from twenty years ago.