Like an eager child with a coloring book, Stephen Malkmus scribbles noisy fragments over familiar structures. With Pavement, he absorbed the sweetened thrash of '80s underground punk and stretched it across the rock lexicon, crafting a catalog of jagged and spacious college-radio staples. Now backed by the Jicks, Malkmus continues to expand his repertoire of guitar-rock distortions. The group's recently released Real Emotional Trash provides even more support for crowning the man "king of the indies."