Some bands are nourished by change, like it’s a requirement, even if hindsight is needed to ascertain and rubber stamp the suspicion. Stagnation can be dreadfully unsanitary after all. But not Mojave 3, surely? Their stillness has been key to their beauty all along, like slow-motion time-shift photography of a quilted azure sky on an August evening from just behind the safety of a comfortable straw hat. Lolling from chord to chord, slide to slide, ivory tinkle to ivory tinkle like the second hand hasn’t been invented yet. Opening tracks on their records in particular have been slow-burning masterpieces of expansion, the Mercury Rev-esque ‘Bluebird Of Happiness’ from last album ‘Spoon & Rafter’ being the nadir. Which is why the out of character thriftiness of ‘Truck Drivin Man’ opening up here feels as snug as a Hessian sack next to the voluptuous Kashmir sheet comfort of yore.
Keys hammer down in the style of an East End pub knees up, drums just as chipper and rosy cheeked, at twice the speed of Mojave 3, as ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ tries to cut through from the still-playing jukebox. It flits by without the grace we’ve become accustomed to (that’s leant up against the bar swinging a tankard of mild to the beat). It’s like the brush barely has chance to make a meaningful stroke on the canvas, by trying to be much more much quicker it end up just lacking. Pleasingly, if slightly puzzlingly (well, they did say) this isn’t representative of the whole record. Though it does certainly have a previously uncharacteristic spring in its step we’re not talking ministry of silly walks. And there is time for a touch of the sunset solitude, ‘Most Days’ for instance being beautifully gradual in the vein of Ryan Adams’ ‘Love Is Hell’ opus.
Otherwise, ‘Puzzles Like You’ sets out a bid to become the new Teenage Fanclub. ‘Big Star Baby’ speaks for itself whether it means to or not, a drizzle of warm, consistent melody. The title track is a pretty coasting-down-Route-1 breeze of Byrdsian sure-footedness, a reoccurring theme, also very evident on the floaty ‘Running With Your Eyes Closed’. ‘Breaking The Ice’ and ‘Ghost Ship Waiting’ are both thrilling races with the accelerator jammed in the mid-50s, doing everything the opening track didn’t and showing The Thrills just how 60s California-pop is really done. ‘To Hold Your Tint Toes’ though is probably the peak, melody freefall with the sharp, though unmatched, execution of The Shins. This is a good album, one that feels like it has direction, and it’s nice to know where you’re going. Only their attraction was always that they made you feel like it didn’t matter when you got there. This one is timetabled.