PAVEMENT IN TUNE. It’s almost impossible to believe.

When Stephen Malkmus talks wonderfully in gibberish, it’s the ironically effacing, coyly endearing demeanor of a smart-ass with a heart of gold. He, through and including Pavement (the seminal band he fronted until last year when they publicly broke up in a way completely in tune with the band’s spirit—they forgot to tell anyone else despite their own chagrin), became an icon of indie rock cred—only with a sweet and accessible edge; some people even debated whether Pavement was the best band of the ’90s. But when their final album Terror Twilight was released last June, it was Pavement in glossy cement. Their poppy-sloppy-psychedelia was so restrained, so (uncharacteristically) rigid, that it was easy to feel like producer Nigel Godrich was the only one going to extremes. And then, as rumors started to surface towards the end of Pavement’s last tour, it became brazenly apparent: Terror Twilight was Pavement’s fulfill-the-contract-obligation-record.

Well, listen to this: Stephen Malkmus, his solo debut and return, does the Pavement unthinkable: guitars in tune! The album also delivers what Twilight should have, that being, a glossy recording that still feels like an unconventional and chaotically poppy in-between of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee. Frankly, Pavement was a pop jam band—a jam band that wavered so gleefully between brilliantly random and flat-out lazy—and no matter how inventive they may have gotten, a lack of inspiration may very well lead to redundancy around the edges. (Drummer Bob Nostanovich and his lackadaisical style was becoming the most redundant part.)

So Malkmus is airy avante-pop of the same wave, kitschly wrangling in as many eye-winking elements all for a sound of warm and inviting experimentation; the rough edges are grinded by his new accompanying band the Jicks. Malkmus’ lyrics feel just as at home, using love stories between 18-year-olds and 31-year-old son of a Coke-a-Cola man, Yul Brenner, et cetera. And of course, these too have Malkmus’ changeless inflection delivery that somehow waxes the personality of a softy; he could read out of a Biology book and somehow get a laugh, with the subliminal messages of a heart on a sleeve. But still…:

It’s PAVEMENT IN TUNE. It’s completely unthinkable. 

The Jicks have added what the rest of Pavement had never dared to (or dreamed of?), but have they ruined the laissez faire? An organized Pavement is a musical pipe-dream, perhaps invented by someone in the middle of the aimless middles of Brighten the Corners or Wowee Zowee. Malkmus’ music, on the other hand, has always been that of the guy who no one sees for months at a time, but for whom everyone is ecstatic when he does surface. Now Malkmus seems a little more reliable and dependably present; he’s missing a fraction of the spark, but everyone still loves to see him.