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Uncut (UK) - November 1999
By Tom Cox
4 out of 5 stars
Small-scale Ohio visionaries return as stadium rockers and potential Oasis rivals.
Guided by Voices` four-track mastermind, Bob Pollard, has been threatening to make the
jump to hi-fi for most of the Nineties, but Do The Collapse, produced by The Cars` Ric
Ocasek, is the first time he`s completely relinquished his addiction to hissing scrawls
and scuzzy doodles. "Hold on Hope" is such an enormous, balls-out,
lighter-waving attempt to swing on the general public`s heart strings, it could almost be
a sussed mid-American cousin to Robbie Williams` "Angels". But don`t let that
put you off: Pollard still has his knack of finding just the right misty-eyed melody to
match an opaque turn-of-phrase - the kind of skill Pavement lost some time in 1993.
"In Stitches" is Scott Walker singing The Who. "Dragons Awake"
is Peter Gabriel interpreting the Stonehenge scene in This Is Spinal Tap without
irony. The rest soars between old-school arena rock-out a la Cheap Trick`s debut and
a favourite gruff uncle singing you sweetly to sleep. Not Guided By Voices` finest
hour (that honour still goes to 1994`s multiform colourscape, Bee Thousand), but certainly
their bravest