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This week, former Pavement demiurge Stephen Malkmus and his band of backing musicians the Jicks release Pig Lib, a follow-up to 2001’s Stephen Malkmus. Both previous albums are ones this reviewer tried really hard to dislike. Both ended up winning her heart. So when both next efforts fell into her lap recently, she chalked it up to karma and decided to review them together. For the record, the similarities between Hearts of Oak and Pig Lib don’t exist entirely in the whims of the free-CD-bestowing cosmos. Ted Leo and Stephen Malkmus both left successful bands in the 90’s to pursue solo careers, and both got a lot of shit for it from certain fans. True, their approaches couldn’t be more different – Leo’s wails drip Dionysian abandon while Malkmus projects sardonic Apollonian remove. But as ostensibly solo artists, they use their bands in the same way, surrounding the vocals with a thick cushion of very-much-plugged-in guitar. Perhaps more importantly,
though, both Ted Leo and Stephen Malkmus know how to take potentially
fatal stylistic flaws and spin them into the poppiest of gold. This alchemy
soothed my initial trepidation about The Tyranny of Distance and Stephen
Malkmus: Leo’s tendency to belt questionable lyrics like his life
depends on it and Malkmus’ leanings towards gimmickry were quickly
overshadowed by the quality of their songwriting. Hearts of Oak opens with the unbelievably plaintive “Building Skyscrapers in a Basement,” which sounds like nothing so much as an Irish tenor longing for the old country on the set of Gangs of New York. Trilling his “l’s,” Leo warbles such couplets as “I know some things I’d rather not/ like the time ahead is all the time you’ve got.” He sounds so sincere and vulnerable that it’s hard not to get slightly embarrassed for him. Just when the tone of the album seems to be cry-into-your-beer, though, the second track comes along and changes everything. “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?” bounces around in just the right way – in fact, I’d be lying if I said that thinking about it doesn’t have me dancing just a little bit in my computer chair. Hearts of Oak retains this effortless catchiness through to the second-to-last song, the balladesque “First to Finish, Last to Start,” which returns us to the plaintiveness of the album’s beginning. By this time, though, Ted Leo has earned our trust, so the unrestrained emotionality feels heartfelt as opposed to melodramatic. Pig Lib, on the other hand, suffers from an excess of effort. Either Malkmus is trying to hard, or he’s simply lost his touch. While he does have a tendency to err on the side of goofiness, here he sounds forced in the opposite direction: everything on this album feels a little too heavy-handed. Forget jaunty rhythms set to three minutes of lyrics about Yul Brenner, a la his last solo album; Pig Lib is all about wah-wah guitar rock. The sound is more dense, more lush, and to my mind, far less interesting. Only “Vanessa from Queens,” which sounds like an outtake from Brighten the Corners, works as the sort of casual pop one might expect from the former Pavement lead singer. At the opposite end of the spectrum, “Dark Wave” is positively eighties, and the chorus is positively metal. There’s nothing wrong with invoking the eighties or metal per se, but on Malkmus it sounds unnatural. (Some reviewers seem to think this song is a parody of the new wave revival, but that doesn’t make it less mediocre). Just a few weeks ago I wrote in these pages that I wasn’t sure why Pavement is always called a band of slackers. Upon hearing Pig Lib, however, I understand how different Stephen Malkmus sounds when he’s actually trying. Pig Lib has its moments, but as “solo” albums from former singers of nineties indie rock bands go, I’d pick Hearts of Oak over it any time. —Izzy Grinspan |
copyright © 2002, The College
Hill Independent
last updated 03 14 03
