Aftonbladet (Swedish Newspaper)
June 14 2002
Håkan Steen

Thanks to Brian Lynch for translating!!

4 out of 5 stars

Guided By Voices
Universal Truths and Cycles
Matador Records

Whoa! First the unexpectedly sharp Sentridoh album, and now this. The best Guided By Voices album since “Under the Bushes, Under the Stars”! And that album came out in 1996. Robert Pollard was out wobbling with a budget that was a little too high, and Ric Ocasek as producer on the slightly over-comfortable album “Do the Collapse” 1999. Via last years “Isolation Drills” he has now, not only found his way back to the record company Matador, but also his inspiration. This album is probably closer to parts of 1995’s “Alien Lanes”, but more than anything it’s one of those albums, full of ideas, with the perfect amount and length of librating, noisy, psychedelic pop songs. Simply put GBV as they’re supposed to sound. There are those that say that 2002 is the lo-fi year. When old innovators awaken like this, I wonder if it isn’t time to start believing them.