While recent pop scensters like Supergrass, Oasis and Cast show up with their '60s goods, spit-shined and attitude-ready, Guided By Voices nostalgic songs fight through indifferent performances and glaring lo-fi production, sounding like cheap home-made demos. That's a shame, because Guided By Voices has the depth and maturity missing from many of England's stylish upstarts. They know they're good, but they'd rather be cool, indie-rock underachievers than clean up their act.
Though their lyrics are often non-sensical, GBV's musical references are transparent: This is a group that lives, dreams, and drinks in the past, especially the summer of '66 when the Beatles tossed off reverb-drenched classics like "Rain" and "I'm Only Sleeping". Singing in fake English accents over murky drums and nonexistent bass, GBV delivers melancholy Beatlemania through the sound of a crummy transistor radio. Still there are gems that resist the bands' attempts to camouflage their brilliance: "To Remake The Young Flyer" is a Badfingerish dirge that floats on gorgeously liquid guitars. "Acorns and Orioles" recalls R.E.M. at their most introspective and endearing while "Atom Eyes" is brisk power pop, all Raspberries-esque guitar and trebly cymbals. But what ultimately defines GBV is what they lack. Besides careless production, not one song in this hefty collection has a bridge - ya know, the "middle eight", that spot midway through a song that either creates tension or offers release. GBV don't use them. With their iconoclast rules, GBV seems intent on inhabiting the words to their song "Bright Paper Wearwolves": "They finally got recognized so they left in obscurity and misery". It's an unfortunate point of view from these talented deconstructionists.
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