| Home | Fading Captain Series | GBV News | The Band | The Music | The Critics & Fans | Merchandise | Other Stuff |

Sponic #3
By John Wenzel

Robert Pollard
Waved Out 
Matador Records

Robert Pollard knows that consistency is important.
The lead singer of indie-rock darlings Guided by
Voices, Pollard writes more songs than you can shake a
stick at.

This would mean nothing if they weren't consistently
good, but fortunately not only are they good, they're
brilliant.

Waved Out, Pollard's second solo album, contains
suggestions of Wire (the prog-rock influenced
"Subspace Biographies"), The Beatles ("Showbiz Opera
Walrus"), and other varied British rock gods. However,
Pollard has created a genre all his own with songs
like "People Are Leaving" (with Stephanie Sayers) and
"Pick Seeds from My Skull."

Call it lo-fi indie-folk, space-pop, or whatever else
you want, the result is a slew of beautiful, hummable
melodies that stick to your brain like hot glue. The
only misstep is the last track, "Second Step Next
Language." It's about twice as long as it should have
been (something I don't normally say about Pollard's
tunes).

As always, his lyrics are an experiment in poetic
surrealism. "Caught Waves Again" boasts the wonderful
line, "Went up North to where the city lights shine,
like strobes of aurora on bottles of wine."

Now how can you beat that?