Crack

16/20

The much-lauded 2010 reunion of indie icons Pavement saw the band’s erstwhile frontman Stephen Malkmus thrust back into the spotlight. This record from his current outfit, therefore, has garnered significantly more attention than the four which preceded it. In fact, Stephen and his Jicks have been playing together since 2000, longer than Pavement themselves existed, and have in that time garnered a reputation for their own style of Neil Young-inspired, countrified indie.

Mirror Traffic finds the band joined by fellow figurehead Beck on production duties and returning to far more Pavement-esque territory, that irresistible slacker sound melding with the Jicks’ more pensive leanings. This is perfectly exemplified in the squiffy verse structure and memorable harmonies of opener and lead-off single Tigers, which combines that unmistakable Pavement swagger with dreamy slide guitar. The snotty Senator, meanwhile, sees Malkmus exhibiting some uncharacteristic political polemic, spitting “I know what the senator wants, what the senator wants is a blow-job”, at the same time squeezing more ideas into one song than most bands could dream of.

Unlike some of the Jicks’ previous material, indulgent instrumentation is kept to a minimum, and while songs sometimes meander from phase to phase, such is the strength of Malkmus’s songwriting that sections which could seem disparate sit together comfortably. At 15 songs the set is slightly overlong, and the brilliantly triumphant twelfth track Forever 28 would make an ideal closer, which along with a slightly flat mid-album lull are disappointing elements. But there’s no doubt this is the Jicks’ best album to date, and while spending time revisiting the band in which he made his name has reinvigorated Malkmus’s creative juices, this is a band with an identity of their own who’ve produced an album which, despite being destined to forever be compared with one of the most influential bands in modern music, can proudly go toe to toe with anyone.

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Words: Geraint Davies

http://stephenmalkmus.com/

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