Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros | Here

CD Reviews

Guided by Voices | Let's Go Eat the Factory

Guided By Voices, Inc. (2012)

By GARRETT MARTIN | January 11, 2012

2.5 Stars

This one was supposed to mean something. Guided by Voices "broke up" in 2004, but Robert Pollard basically is Guided by Voices, and he never stopped putting out records. In fact, he sped up, releasing something like 30 albums since the split. Even the most diehard Pollard fan can be forgiven for tuning out around 2007. The GBV name on Let's Go Eat the Factory's label indicates two things to those fans: this is the first record to feature the "classic" Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes line-up since 1996, and this is the first Pollard album to deserve the GBV moniker since the break-up. At least that first one is true. These are the same craggy Ohio elders who played on the band's best material, including Tobin Sprout, the singer-songwriter who once held down the George Harrison spot opposite Pollard's one-man Lennon/McCartney. Factory doesn't entirely squander the goodwill built up by their recent excellent reunion tour, but it's not significantly better than the standard Pollard solo album of the last decade. It's a bit grittier, attempting to re-create the four-track grumble of the mid-'90s, but the songwriting isn't here. Even the best Guided by Voices album alternated instant classics with mediocre spot-holders, but Factory is almost entirely the latter. A handful of songs are solid enough to wind up on your next Pollard mixtape, like the Who-esque stomper "The Unsinkable Fats Domino" or the endearingly lazy "How I Met My Mother." Sprout steals the record, though, contributing the two best songs: the warm fuzzy pop of "Waves" is the most GBV has ever sounded like the Clean, and "God Loves Us" embeds the vocal hook to the Icicle Works' "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)" in a classic one-minute burst of drunken lo-fi swagger. Maybe it's time for Pollard to be the sideman for a record or two.

Topics: CD Reviews , Music, break up, brief, More

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 05/19 ] The Big Draw @ RISD Museum

[ 05/19 ] The RISD Film/Animation/Video Festival @ RISD Auditorium

[ 05/19 ] "The Ashes Series," photographs by Wafaa Bilal @ David Winton Bell Gallery

ARTICLES BY GARRETT MARTIN

YO LA TENGO | FADE | January 17, 2013
Fade starts with James McNew and Ira Kaplan harmonizing on the line "sometimes the good things fade."

ALLO DARLIN' | EUROPE | April 10, 2012
It's good to hear a band grow. Like Allo Darlin's first effort, Europe is full of catchy pop songs, and Elizabeth Morris's vocals are still heart-tuggingly direct and intimate.

CEREMONY | ZOO | March 13, 2012
Ceremony aren't as intellectual or dryly hilarious as Wire and don't attempt a comparable stylistic variety, but the raucous Zoo is a fine tribute to Wire's heavier side, alternating between powerful, lumbering riffs and manic splatters of guitar noise.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS | LOVE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA | February 28, 2012
The Magnetic Fields' last three albums all eschewed the synthesizers that typified their sound in the '90s, but Fields main man Stephin Merritt makes up for it on Love at the Bottom of the Sea, where he deploys at least 10 albums' worth of synths in a brisk 35 minutes.

GUIDED BY VOICES | LET'S GO EAT THE FACTORY | January 11, 2012
The GBV name on Let's Go Eat the Factory' s label indicates two things to those fans: this is the first record to feature the "classic" Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes line-up since 1996, and this is the first Pollard album to deserve the GBV moniker since the break-up.