NME
By Pat Long

Robert Pollard
Fiction Man
#30 in the Fading Captain Series

Cap'n Guided By Voices sails the choppy seven seas of indie

Most famous as the hard-drinking, high-kicking singer in evergreen alt.rock legends Guided By Voices, on his seventh solo album ex-elemntary school teacher Robert Pollard continues his infuriating habit of writing two different types of song. Firstly, there are the power-pop shaped chunks of thriftstore-Beatles magic. Then there are the ones that sound like a field recording of two guys who live under a bridge and drink warm Merrydown cider out of brown paper bags all day. Luckily, on Fiction Man the ratio is about 70/30 in the former's favour and - as the album crams 14 tracks into half an hour - you're never too far from a super-strength chorus. Long may Pollard's crummy self-editing continue.