Bleep

Everything about Groove Denied feels highly illicit. It’s often inadvisable for indie rock royalty to try their hand at electronic music, but Stephen Malkmus shows he’s a rare exception. The ex-Pavement frontman, now temporarily relieved of his regular backing band The Jicks, has been toiling under cover of darkness at something that’s still unmistakably Malkmus, despite the sonic gear shift - slacker-laureate lyricism and garage rock idealism, mixed with the 80s synth aesthetic of early Human League experiments.