| Home | The Band | The Music | The Critics & Fans | Other Stuff |
KEVIN AMORIM
Dayton Daily News
*********************************************************************
Guided By Voices
TIGERBOMB
Matador
************************************************************************
Wire changed Bob Pollard's life. Along with the better-known Gang of Four, Wire took an art-school
Stance toward punk in the late '70s, creating clever epiphanies in a sound that
Was pure pop pleasure. Until Wire, non sequiturs never sounded so good:
Fragile, off 1977's Pink Flag LP (''Tears fall in slivers/ You broke my shades'') was
The prettiest punk song ever.
Guided By Voices' Pollard, the main voice behind Dayton's own
non-sequitur rockheads, admits to falling under the sway of Wire's third release, 154
(1979). He's cited the fine Map Ref. 41 N93 W as a particular favorite.
Leave it to a pop historian to dig up the truly good rock remains.
And leave it to the same guy to put out truly great sounds.
Enter the six-song Tigerbomb, GBV's newest release: Two re-recordings
From this year's Alien Lanes ; a long-distance collaboration with Doug
Gillard of Matador label-mates Cobra Verde; a Tobin Sprout original; and two other
unreleased tracks make Tigerbomb an explosive short-player.
Like past GBV efforts, there's nuance in most every song.
The Beatlesque My Valuable Hunting Knife cuts first. It's a newly
Recorded version for radio play since its Lanes appearance - no tape hiss here.
No reverb from pounding a garbage can, either. In fact, a drum machine lets Kevin
Fennell rest on this one.
Another revisited album track is Game of Pricks, whose genteel
Original version jumpstarts into a romp. Pollard's songwriting chops still come
Across loud(er) and clear: ''I'll climb up on the house/ Weep to water the
trees/ And when you come calling me down/ I'll put on my disease.'' All the while,
Fennell and the rest of the band - guitarists Sprout and Mitch Mitchell and
bassist Jim Greer - hold up their end of the deal.
Then Pollard joins forces with Gillard on Mice Feel Nice (In My Room)
to mine a different vein altogether. The singer's vocals, recorded over an
acoustic-guitar track Gillard dropped in the mail, make for a
nicotine-tinged John Lennon impersonation. Think Abbey Road. When thinking of robot
rock, however, one usually looks to Akron, where Devo produced its noise. GBV
has laid claim to this theme before, and continues with Not Good for the
Mechanism . Recorded on a drum track from an Alien Lanes session and noticeably
slowed(listen for the drawn out count at the song's start), this is Tigerbomb's
roughest cut.
Cut short is the acoustic fairy tale, Kiss Only the Important Ones .
Pollard croons ''Cut your own string'' and his guitar does just that, snapping
the song to an early end.
Tobin Sprout's Dodging Invisible Rays brings Guided By Voices'
affection for sci-fi back to the fore. His enchanted delivery and ear for melody - he
and Pollard are two melodic masters - provide an enticing closing.
There's more to come, come March and GBV's next full-length offering,
Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. If only Wire had been this prolific.
| Home | The Band | The Music | The Critics & Fans | Other Stuff |