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The Tampa Tribune
By Rommie Johnson


Guided By Voices
Do The Collapse   
TVT

Initial pressings of ``Do the Collapse'' shipped with a sticker
proclaiming it ``the last great album of the millennium.'' Whether or not
it proves true is irrelevant; the fact that it could be says it all.
Lo-fi basement dwellers and indie-rock fanboys won't admit it, but Ohio's
Guided By Voices have been dealing in just that sort of rock-star bombast
since the git-go, it's only now they're able to bankroll a big-time
producer (Ric Ocasek) to give it the spit-shine necessary for mass
consumption.

But while ``Do the Collapse'' is all slick-and-polished arena-rock
excess, don't expect GbV to muscle AC/DC off radio playlists any time soon.
The catchiest tracks (``Surgical Focus,'' in which guitarist Doug Gillard
adds sympathetic flourishes to singer-songwriter Robert Pollard's massive
hooks, and ``Teenage F.B.I.,'' with its propulsive beat, big guitar crunch
and Ocasek-infused new-wave keyboards) are probably too challenging even
for today's bland, homogenous ``alternative'' radio. Best bet for a
breakthrough is tear-jerker ``Hold On Hope,'' Pollard's answer to R.E.M.'s
``Everybody Hurts.'' Lilting piano and a string quartet provide the
melancholy as GbV's jangly side flirts with emotional frankness for the
first time.

Elsewhere, the chorus of ``Liquid Indian'' soars with just the right mix
of power and pop, keeping every promise GbV ever made. Shame, then, that
Bob buried it in the middle of one of his most abstruse songs yet. He'll
have nobody to scapegoat if ``Collapse'' flops commercially, but in any
event, you can be certain the kids who cry ``sell out'' never got it in the
first place.