Stephen Malkmus has a lot going for him: He fronted Pavement, the preeminent indie band of the ’90s; he’s got a stellar set of cheekbones for a cat in his 40s; and he can lay down a seven-minute guitar odyssey called “Hopscotch Willie” without seeming like a moss-headed wank druid. On his fourth and most expansive post-Pavement record, he gets something he’s always needed: a monster drummer (his Portland, Oregon, neighbor Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney, a fellow paragon of brains and chops) to push him toward Valhalla, while keeping him on the sanity grid. His solos kiss the sky as he chomps dragonfly pies and battles with a witchy woman named Wicked Wanda. Even at his loopiest, the goal is wide-armed warmth—“gale-force intimacy,” as he sings—not pompous whimsy. It’s a very rare, wondrous thing: prog-rock for firesides and fuzzy-slipper Sundays.

Download: “Dragonfly Pie,” “Out of Reaches,” “Baltimore”