Magnet Magazine
September/October 2001
Matt Hickey

Airport 5
Tower In The Fountain Of Sparks
#13 in the Fading Captain Series

Robert Pollard and his Soft Rock Renegades
Choreographed Man Of War
#14 in the Fading Captain Series

These LPs are further proof Guided By Voices wonderboy Robert Pollard 
and former GBV-er Tobin Sprout write songs as often as normal humans perform 
mundane tasks like blinking or breathing. Tower is the second full-length 
post-GBV collaboration between Pollard and Sprout; as with 1997’s Tonics And 
Twisted Chasers (released under the GBV flag), Pollard has added vocals to 
hypnotic, repetitive backing tracks Sprout sent him. Somewhat less accessible 
than Tonics, Tower is dominated by slow, dark tunes. Pollard is in fine form 
vocally and lyrically, and Sprout’s music, especially “Total Exposure,” the 
jangly “Circle Of Trim” and the poppy “Stifled Man Casino,” is the equal of 
his cohort’s performance. Still, Tower is really just for GBV-obsessed 
fanboys, surely the intended audience anyway.

Pollard’s Soft Rock Renegades (GBV emeritus members Greg Demos on bass and 
Jim MacPherson on drums) kick up a fairly strong garage-rock ruckus on 
Choreographed Man Of War. Whereas GBV’s Isolation Drills found Pollard 
continuing to grasp for a scaled-down version of rock’s brass ring, here he 
reaches back into his less-slick past. The wacky titles (“40 Yards To The 
Burning Bush,” “Kickboxer Lightning”), proto-Who stomp (“I Drove A Tank”) 
and instantly hummable melodies (take your pick) are here in spades; all 
that’s left to contemplate is whether a Pollard saturation point can ever be 
reached.