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Dayton Daily News
Ron Rollins
Just as we were done listening to the album Do the Collapse, we get a new bit of fun from Guided by Voices. As the title tells, this is indeed the EP containing Hold on Hope, the surprisingly sweet ballad the Dayton rockers released last fall as the second single from the full-length.
Much was made last year of how Robert Pollard, our obtuse, lo-fi hero, had hired ex-Cars mechanic Ric Ocasek to produce Collapse and how Ocasek had streamlined GBV’s notoriously fractured sound. The satisfying album was full of longer pieces, as opposed to the song snippets GBV fans were used to.
Most of the cuts are quick in the older GBV style – not counting the title tune, the longest clocks in at 2:25, with one hitting :51 --- and they run an intriguing stylistic gamut. Crick Uphill is Beatlesque with a lighthearted country kick that builds to a big rock noise. Fly Into Ashes runs a happy Mersey-beat course. (Pollard still loves that old Brit stuff!)
Do the Collapse turned out well. The EP shows how the band got there. We say what we always say after some GBV: Give us more.