hen Stephen Malkmus walked away from the reverent glow that surrounded the remains of Pavement a few years back, he let his hair grow out. Not like the mushroom cloud ‘do he sported in the Slanted & Enchanted era, but like a guy who left the never-that-comfortable confines of California for the looming trees and rain-flecked serenity of the Pacific Northwest. When he revealed the loopy Fantasia of his self-titled debut, where elliptical turned outward and literate wordplay (literally) got adventurous, you could tell Malkmus was on his way home. He got even closer with the southern-fried jammery of his Jenny & The Ess-Dog EP, but he finally arrives on Pig Lib, in which the journeyman sits down, leans back, and rips his yarns. Make no mistake, this ain’t your older brother’s Malkmus.


Although he hinted at Guitar God aspirations on epic Pavement torch songs like “Pueblo” and “Fillmore Jive”, as well as on the Silver Jews’ American Water LP, Malkmus never really made his mark as an ace six-sting wizard like he does here. While infrequent exposure to practice surely played into it at the time, he often reined in his ability because Pavement played the wandering jams that inform Pig Lib in compartmentalized bursts rather than letting them indulge in their sprawl. And if there’s any key theme to Pig Lib, it is indulgence. Leaving gold soundz pop behind for ambling guitar sprees, liberal vocalization, and in-joke lyricism, Malkmus could’ve easily served up the biggest dud of his career. Luckily, his affable spunk grounds much of the exploration, yet, at some point, the line between circumstance and good songwriting becomes suspiciously blurred.


Like the pointless chug of the self-titled record’s opener, “Black Book”, which pointed to the confusion and clockwork-like adherence to motions that marred portions of that album, “Water And A Seat”, with its slow motion fuzz tones, slinky bass, and free drums sets the tone for what will come. Channeling Tom Verlaine through John Fogerty, Malkmus snakes his guitar through layers of his own out-of-control voice, and, for a brief moment, calls the Grateful Dead to mind far more explicitly than on any moment of the consciously loose Terror Twilight. Simply put, he’s never been more free. It’s a beautiful concept to Malkmus, and he visibly runs with it throughout the remaining ten tracks. “Ramp of Death” basks in the sun like little else he’s recorded, and “Animal Midnight” follows its lead, swaying zestfully close to anthemdom when Malkmus intones “You don’t see me/’cause you don’t change.” Liberal use of warm, cooing synthesizers gently pushes “Vanessa From Queens” and “Craw Song” into the sublime, a tactic that turns sinister on the driving “Dark Wave”, a song that borrows concepts from failed experiments on Stephen Malkmus (the bouncy keyboards of “Troubbble”, the sinister vibe of “Black Book”, the insistency of “Discretion Grove”) and constructs a dark rocker that pushes steam like little else in his catalogue.


Already the most discussed track on the album, the nine-minute ambler “1% of One” is actually one of the stiffest things here, despite being the most wide open. Although Malkmus flexes his guitar chops through an impressive array of peaks and valleys, it’s the first time on the album that the group sounds generic-- the song was surely a blast to record, but it feels more like a self-serving homage than the centerpiece that it attempts to be. But all is well that ends well, and Pig Lib certainly does. “Us” is not only the most thrillingly melodic track on the album, but it stands as a final testament to the remarkable dynamic that the Jicks have acquired in their grace period. John Moen’s drums offer rollicking consistency, while Joanna Bolme’s plucky bass shimmies through the erratic changes. When this synchronicity hits home, it becomes imminently clear that a Malkmus divided cannot stand. Ironically, it is with a fully functional band that we find him at his most uninhibited. “You know I won’t be your frozen rose,” Malkmus sings on “Animal Midnight.” When the retrospectively celebratory reissue of Pavement’s seminal Slanted & Enchanted hit the shelves late last year, many feared he would in fact be little more than a stunning winning streak frozen in time. He's not; this is the thaw, don’t get wet.