There was a time, before I ever started this blog, when you probably wouldn't have gotten me to listen to this album. Hell, there was a long period after it started when I still wouldn't have known what to think of it. I had this notion that "being weird" and "being good" were entirely separate things, and that while I had a healthy respect for the odds and ends of the alt-rock world, I didn't consider it my thing. Times change and tastes change and your ability to determine what is good hopefully grows and expands. While it will never be a slam dunk recommending an album like this, once your tastes grow to include it, you feel like you and other people that see the appeal have a connection, and you can sense when someone will like this album, and that they'll get a lot out of it.There's a period after you first hear a piece of music where you have to get used to it. Some hit you immediately and you look forward to the next time you hear it. Some take a while to grow on you. And some sink into the back of your mind so that you know you've heard something but you can't quite call it up, and even if you remember liking it you just don't have any basis to remember why. The next time you hear it is pretty much like the first, but this time you're really listening so you're more likely to retain it. Mirror Traffic stayed in this phase for more re-listens than any album I've picked up since I started. I kept getting to the end of the album and thinking "Okay... what did I hear just now?" I liked it, but there was so much of it that I just couldn't put it all back together in my mind.
It's very much a collage. Songs don't always seem like they belong next to each other. Other songs go off on tangents, jazzy experimental solos or bizarre middle-sections that seem grafted from a totally different songs. It goes from melodic to rough so quickly and so often, that disorientation becomes the norm. Helping this along is Malkmus' ear for jangly alt-pop, like "Stick Figures in Love" or "Forever 28," and his vocals, which constantly sound exasperated, impatient and uncertain, helping the songs into those oddball directions, which he pursues on a whim. And then snaps back. Sometimes he strains at the top of his range, deliberately breaking his voice into a pubescent creep or a wavering wheeze. No, he's not the greatest vocalist ever, but he definitely knows how to write for his voice. Along with other moments, the chorus of "Long Hard Book" hits what sounds like a deliberately sour note. And instead of thinking about how it sounds like he messed up, you wonder what he means by going the other way.
The patchwork definitely works, because even if you don't dig the entire thing, you can be in awe of how it all sits together. That's why the album is my favourite size of musical product to review. There are parts you like and parts you don't, and you could discard the ones you don't, or you can ponder how they all sit together.
At times, it does morph comfortably into pleasure listening: "Senator" is a great raucous affair, as is the garage-moded "Tune Grief." "Brain Gallop" has a hook of "There's not much left inside my tank today," which you might find yourself humming over, and slower tunes like "Fall Away" and "Asking Price" find a real sweet spot, a deep breath in the middle of the chaos. I really am burying the lead, in a way, by not praising the individual songs and musicianship more. It's just so interesting to me the way they all form a whole.
While I'd rather not temper my praise, I still have to note that it won't be for everyone. It does its own thing, and it doesn't need anyone's approval. Someone disliking it doesn't mean they have bad taste, and someone liking it might not even indicate they have good taste. But it does indicate a certain type of listener, one that you might be without even knowing.
Buy this album now! iTunes // Amazon.com
// Amazon.ca
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