I think FTT is the best of Malkmus's solo albums, and one of the most listenable indie records of this decade. Malkmus's gift for off-the-cuff vocal melodies, which he showed with Pavement on Wowee Zowee but seemingly lost on his second solo album, is obvious after listening to FTT. You can hum to "No More Shoes" or "Freeze the Saints." Definitely deserves to be heard by a wider range of listeners.

I Really Really Dig this album, i would say i am a moderate Pavement fan, so i picked this album up and was blow away. Best Songs "It Kills" "Freeze The Saints" "No More Shoes" "Mama" "Kindling For The Master" "Baby C'Mon" and "Malediction" It is a super great album, I think it blows away his Pavement work, alot more relized and Poppy. It's amazing!!

Malkmus is one wicked craftsman of delightfully pleasant tunes. His songs come off to the ear so easy in one breath and wildly eclectic and zany in another. I'll never know how the guy does it but he does it well. That first track is probably the doosiest on FTT, and beginning with 2 on through to 11 (frequently my favorite) the album soars like a mini-epic. I dig it.

Great! :D

What? Worst ever. This is so bad it's funny. 1st solo album = not too bad. Better than Terror Twilight. 2nd album Jicks= not too bad, but pretty bad. this is just like ...What? What are you doing man? finding any merit in this is difficult.

This is really a musically ODD disc. It's far less melodic than anything Malkmus (& co.) have done so far (and, unfortunately, far less lyrically clever --did someone else in Pavement write the words?) The best way to describethe music is to compare it to the work of jazz musician Dave Brubeck (to whom Malkmus paid apparently-sincere homage with the song "5-4=Unity" on the album "Crooked Rain.") I find myself admiring the musicianship and the complexity of the arrangements, but overall there's a sort of....overworked quality to this that makes it a little hard to really get into.

From everything I've read about this album, most people agree it's Malkmus's best to date, a major return to form after the psych-pop noodlings of "Stephen Malkmus" and "Pig Lib."

I've tried hard to hear it that way, but must be living in some parallel universe. There are some worthy tunes here, sure, but there were on the last couple records too (I think if you compiled the best songs from all three Jicks releases, you'd have one heck of a classic). This one seems to follow the others in oscillating kind of senselessly between soft pop 30-something musings and proggy excursions into electro-synth weirdness with one foot in Zappa and the other in the Krautrock kosmische music that, in all fairness, Malkmus has championed since Pavement's early days. I don't mind the out-there stuff, and I like some of the pop, but I wouldn't make exaggerated claims for either one. It's fun, it's pleasant, but ... O.K., I'll say it. It just doesn't raise the top off my head and pour radiant sonic goodness inside the way Pavement did even on their bad days.

So much about post-Pavement Malkmus is great. The voice is still there, the genius for arrangement, the inventive, witty guitar quotes that fall just this side of irony. But Face the Truth somehow doesn't manage to be more than the sum of its parts. Maybe the Jicks are too tight, or too reverent in the presence of Stephen or something, but I miss the sloppy grandeur of the old band. Now go ahead and slay me on the votes ... then buy it and make up your own mind.