Guided by Voices
Fri., Apr. 6, at the House of Blues
The formula for Guided by Voices albums used to be great, great songs and crappy production, a sign of genius over marketing in an age when everybody's a salesman and nobody's really a genius. By the time anyone outside Bob Pollard's native Dayton, Ohio, had discovered him, his band had already released a half-dozen garage masterpieces of bright British Invasion sunshine streaming through low-fi American dust, with surrealistic lyrics that made no sense but, dammit, had to make sense somehow since they just sounded so good. The tape deck recorded gritty, subterranean inspiration, not hard work. But over the last several years, Pollard has shuffled his backup band around a couple of times and started to make records that reverse his initial approach. GBV's new one, Isolation Drills (TVT), like Do the Collapse two years ago, offers mostly mediocre songs with slicked-up, going-for-the-gold professional production, all edges neatly trimmed and all guitar tracks sounding like they were done in 22 laborious takes. The album was produced with no particular charm by Rob Schnapf, who pushes all the levels too high and makes the band sound like the Foo Fighters or a million late-'80s R.E.M. wanna-bes. GBV albums used to include one or two clunkers amid about 14 unpolished gems; the last couple have contained only a few real keepers, and on Isolation Drills, that honor belongs to only one song, "Glad Girls." Blasting gloriously through a two-chord, I-can't-believe-how-easy-this-is riff while Pollard's falsetto croons with perfect innocence ("Hey-ey glad girls, only wanna get you high"), the track's 3 minutes 49 seconds disappear all too quickly. Luckily, Pollard's showmanship and earnest love of classic, mic-cord-twirling rock 'n' roll have been completely unaffected by these recent shifts in recording ethics (which may not be his choice anyway). The new band are smiley, sweaty and happy, and Pollard leads them with a colossal, Daltrey-esque self-assurance. Aren't quasi rock stars much more interesting than real rock stars? -- Ben Sisario
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