Stephen Malkmus – Sparkle Hard
Seventh Jicks-backed set from Pavement frontman. Kim Gordon guests.
DOMINO CD DL LP
AS WELL AS BLENDING linguistic elegance and musical levity, Sparkle Hard affirms Stephen Malkmus’s increasingly contemplative approach. The songwriter dials down his flippant rock lexicog- rapher persona from the get-go, as Cast Off’s opening piano chords establish a troubled mood that pervades even the groovy choogle of Bike Lane, a venomous satire of the 2015 killing of Freddie Gray by Baltimore police – “Kick off your jackboots, it’s time to unwind” – and then bleeds into the pointedly titled Middle America (“Men are scum, I won’t deny”), a regretful, ultramelodious late-VU swoon. There’s a cosmic twinkle throughout, brightest amid Kite’s almighty guitar ascension, or the Can-go-jive-talking exit Let Them Eat Vowels, while Refute, a bluegrass duet with Kim Gordon, leans more to pathos than mischief. The PG Wodehouse of the indie generation has scarcely dealt a finer hand.
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