MAGNET
March/April 2002
Issue #53
Fred Mills


Airport 5
Life Starts Here
#18 in the Fading Captain Series

Go Back Snowball
Calling Zero
#17 in the Fading Captain Series

Hi, and welcome to the latest Guided By Voices family
picnic; the Fading Captain Series -- patriarch Bob
Pollard's musical take on sack races -- is already in
full swing. Pollard and his favorite cousin, Tobin
Sprout, have reunited to unveil the latest Airport 5
model, and if it has a more fleshed-out, expansive
sound that its slightly demo-ish predecessor, last
year's Tower in the Fountain of Sparks, it's also
musically darker and more psychologically isolated. 
Sprout's instrumental and production touches (deep-mix
stereo effects, better mic placement for acoustic
guitars, a fuller drum sound, etc.) suggest he labored
over the music. There's no tossed-off singing for
Pollard, either. On song after song, he seems to pour
his soul into his vocals: the throbbing "Natives
Approach Our Plane," with its chanted, overlapping
vocal lines; sweet, jangly gospel ballad "We're in the
Business," featuring his most introspective,
Daltrey-esque turn to date; the chiming "Can't Freeze
Anymore," so yearning in tone it's almost painful to
hear.

Superchunk's Mac McCaughan crashed this year's party,
but before security ejected him, Pollard signed him up
for collaborative duties in Go Back Snowball. Back
home in North Carolina, McCaughan cooked up a dozen
endearing pop instrumentals, from the fuzz-toned
"Never Forget Where You Get Them" and the
electro-drone "Throat of Throats" to the acoustic
guitar and treated piano of "Red Hot Halos" and the
lo-fi organ and trumpet of "Radical Girl" (the latter
two, incidentally, sounding very Portastatic-like). 
Upon receiving the tapes in the mail, Pollard worked
his traditional lyrical wizardry, then laid down the
vocals as buoyant and energetic as those for Airport 5
are downcast. The strummy, spangly title track alone,
with its punning wordplay and playful-yet-precise
enunciation, clearly drags Pollard out of his
emotional funk.