Stephen Malkmus & Jicks Issue #35

Real Emotional Trash (Matador)

By John Everhart
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 2:52pm

Real Emotional Trash, in its title alone, gets to the heart of the frustrating dichotomy that all too often is Stephen Malkmus. It’s in the way gloriously poignant moments that teeter on universal appeal are suddenly skewered with obfuscations, revealing a disdain for the cheapness of emotion in a pop song. The Pavement discography was nonetheless unimpeachable, a legacy defining canon for Malkmus, but his solo records both with and without the Jicks have been wildly uneven affairs, until this one. Real Emotional Trash is as close to a cohesive band album he’s created since Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain due in no small part to the addition of Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss as drummer, and it’s a fine one indeed.

A homespun influence of ‘60s British folk-rock band Fairport Convention guides much of Trash, especially the serpentine chamber folk of “Wicked Wanda,” and the fuzzed-out psychedelic wash of “Elmo Delmo.” The schizoid “Baltimore” is superb, beginning as a warm Dylan Basement Tapes send up, a waltz time piano–guided torch song undergirded by Tom Verlaine–like quicksilver guitar lines, before metamorphosing into a caustic, elongated jam breakdown that evokes ’70s prog heroes the Groundhogs.

On the scarred, R.E.M-informed centerpiece ballad, “Out of Reaches,” Malkmus finally comes clean with his ache.” It’s as emotionally direct as anything he’s written, devastating as he abjectly wheezes, “There’s no more running gags to attract,” leading up to a treble-charged chorus that drives a stake through your heart, and he’s right. This is no goof. It’s the visceral payoff on a challenging, truly great record.