| Home | Fading Captain Series | GBV News | The Band | The Music | The Critics & Fans | Merchandise | Other Stuff |



Dream Magazine Issue #3 
By George Parsons

Go Back Snowball
Calling Zero
#17 in the Fading Captain Series

The Fading Captain Series is a series of collaborations and solo work involving the incredibly
prolific Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices. Superchunk's Mac McCaughan wrote the music and mailed the recordings to Pollard who wrote and sang the words to the dozen songs here. The combination of the two sensibilities is magic; making some of the most satisfying music either of these fellows has ever done. "Never Forget Where You Get Them" is a soaring incredible piece of anthem-like majesty and soulful advice, one of those songs you might play 16 times in a row and still not be sated. In places the REM influence is overt, some songs are more fully realized than others; but the standards are high throughout, and the best songs are really extraordinary. "It Is Divine" is another high melodic pop masterpiece, with some transcendent guitar work by Mac and a wise and true lyrical observation about life, youth and existence in general.