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Rolling Stone - March 23, 1995
Alien Lanes **** Box *** 1/2
White Men With Guitars: This remains the paradigm for indie rock, college rock, underground rock - whatever, nevermind. Still, despite its obsolescence due to politically incorrect Caucasian maleness, this brand of indie rock still produces vital, exciting music and continues to blaze into uncharted territory as well as rediscover territory long thought settled. Many such groups ultimately find themselves shot from obscurity to the limelight: REM, of course, remains the genre's figurehead, and Nirvana, Husker Du and Sonic Youth (which, of course, have a significant female member, Kim Gordon) followed similar paths to their places in rock history. Currently, Pavement's lethargic avant pop reigns as the indie-rock sound du jour, but that could be threatened by this years model, Guided by Voices. GBV manage to be even more politically incorrect than their contemporaries: Not only are they guitar-wielding males, but since their ages peak in the late 30s, they're practically baby boomers, making them especially unlikely indie-rock superstars. You would never guess it from the youthful spirit of their music, though: hooky rock that infuses songwriting smarts and a love of melody with a sometimes spiky, sometimes whimsical sense of experimentation. GBV first drew serious attention in 1993 with "Vampire on Titus;" their next album the masterful "Bee Thousand" (1994), with its kaleidoscopic command of pops vocabulary, solidified their acclaim. GBV's maturity should come as no surprise, considering their history. While they appear to be an overnight success, they have actually been together since 1983, honing their craft on numerous self-released albums that never made it out of their hometown of Dayton, Ohio. These albums - many of which are collected on "Box" - chronicle the bands evolution into a signature sound as styles are tried on and discarded like so many clothes. The result of this woodshedding hits home most clearly, however, on GBV's new album, "Alien Lanes." If anything, "Alien Lanes" outshines "Bee Thousand" in its startling consistency; over the course of 28 songs, GBV explore nearly as many styles, in the process creating a magnum opus of pure pop for now people. GBV typically get tagged as avatars of lo-fi - a sound characterized by hiss and noise, the result of home taping on primitive recording equipment. Indeed, like most previous GBV projects, "Alien" was recorded in a basement on four and eight-track machines. The coarse sound gives the album the feel of a treasured bootleg, a millionth-generation tape of a favorite unknown band on which lie gems of unquestionable value. "Alien's" diamonds in the rough include "Game of Pricks," whose title belies desperately sweet power pop. On that song, lead vocalist and primary songwriter Robert Pollard croons opaque proverbs like "You can never be strong/You can only be free" over churning, infectious guitar hooks. Like most sublime rock, "Game of Pricks" manages to be both tragic and uplifting; that its chord progression never quite resolves imparts a curious melancholy, a feeling that prevades the album. Similarly, "Motor Away" succeeds as a driving anthem - recalling such 80's icons as The Records and Bram Tchaikovsky - while maintaining a plaintive longing. Also striking are "Alien's" darkly beautiful ballads like "They're Not Witches" "the Ugly Vision" and "Ex-Supermodel," they're honeyed despair rivaling anything off Big Star's "Third" (true to the lo-fi spirit, "Ex-Supermodel" features a snoring noise underneath its gorgeous guitar line.) Throughout, Pollard dazzles with his casual vocal virtuosity. he appears able to weave beautiful melodies over anything, often with a faux British accent to boot. On "Alien" the band - which includes Jim Pollard on guitar and bass, Mitch Mitchell on guitar, Kevin Fennell on drums, (roch critic and Kim Deal squeeze) Jim Greer on bass and mulit-instrumentalist Tobin Sprout - displays a chemistry born of a near decade spent rocking the basement. Sprout, who, plays Keith Richards to Robert Pollard's Jaggar, also makes excellent song contributions. He wraps his elfin voice around the exuberantly simple "Yeah!" chorus of "A Good Flying Bird" and tugs at the heartstrings on the Buzzcocks style rave-up "Little Whirl." Despite their indie-rock status, GBV are no Sonic Youth: GBV don't rebel against rock conventions, they revel in them, unafraid of intoxicating harmonies, smart melodies and chiming guitars. On "Alien" they also revel in influences ranging from early Cheap Trick and T Rex's psychadelic glam to Wire's deranged art-punk. and everything by the Beatles (check out "As We Go Up we Go Down.") But GBV's individual outlook and infectious enthusiasm make old ingedients seem new, mixing them into a brilliant collection of songs whose importance feels predestined. "Alien's" release coincides with that of "Box," which collects four early GBV albums (the vinyl version includes five) along with a set of unreleased songs. Taken together, these objects trouves become a kind of indie-rock version of Bob Dylan's "The Basement Tapes." "The Devil Between My Toes" (1987), GBV's first album, is their most bizarre, as the band experiments with abrupt rhythm changes and discordant guitar rants a la Wire and Joy Division with oddly compelling results. "Sandbox" (1988) incorporates these idiosynchratic tendencies into sunny pop replete with Mick Ronson-style guitar solos; songs like "Can'tStop" prefigure Nirvana's spiky stop-start hooks, and "Long Distance Man" is a virtual re-write of the Beatles "Nowhere Man." "Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia" (1989) continues the slide into stylistic bedlam, adding ambitious song structures to the maelstrom. These elements continue on "Same Place The Fly Got Smashed" (1990), a strange concept album that tells the tale of a lonely Midwestern alcoholic in ballads like "Drinkers Peace" and loser anthems like "Pendulum." "Propellor" (1992) remains the piece de resistance of the bands formative period, presenting big sounding punky arena rock, a blend of the Sex Pistols and Grand Funk Railroad. More than anything, the records in "Box" recall a pre-Veruca Salt time when indie bands didn't get signed by major labels before they'd left the garage. Unfortunalty, "Box" does not include GBV's debut EP, "Forever Since Breakfast." Like many records circa 1986, "Forever" replicates exactly the sound of mid period REM, a band with whom GBV share much. Its easy to forget that REM were once a regional cult band with a Byrds-obsessed guitarist, a poetry mumbling singer and an indie hit called "Radio Free Europe." GBV are much in the same position today, but in a musical climate more open to their success. Like REM, GBV blend the conventional with the weird and are accessible enough to get that mix over to the masses. Maybe they'll bring lo-fi to the charts the way Green Day replaced Nirvana's grunge with pop punk. Even if that happens, the songs will probably remain the same. On "An Earful o' Wax" (from "Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia"), Pollard sings "When you come around/I can still be found/In another world." Lets hope he never gets his head out of the clouds.
-Matt Diehl