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Guided by Voices release challenging yet melodic double album
Guided By Voices (GBV)'s new album Zeppelin Over China is a strong follow-up to last year's Space Gun, an album considered by a good few as a proper comeback for the veteran US indie rockers with 26 albums under its belt.
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Making music: Veteran indie rockers Guided By Voices return with a challenging prog-pop double album, "Zeppelin Over China". (Courtesy of Guided By Voices/-)
G
uided By Voices’ (GBV) new album Zeppelin Over China is a strong follow-up to last year's Space Gun, an album considered by a good few as a proper comeback for the veteran US indie rockers with 26 albums under their belt.
Zeppelin is an album that lurches with rocking energy and which presents frontman Robert Pollard’s (he is GBV) affinity for classic and progressive rock alongside psychedelic pop.
What stands out this time is a propulsive quality, with a good measure of almost-celebratory almost-straightforward rockers taking up most of the song list. These feel very much like songs written for the stage.
With 32 tracks, there is a lot to take in, and as later-period GBV often is, the majority of melodies take a while to seep in, slithering between the familiarities of pop with unexpected and often challenging-to-follow melodic turns.
Those peculiarities are of course what make GBV, and in particular Pollard, such an idolized figure to his fans. The 61-year-old's musical characteristics have resulted in over 100 records under many band names – including his own and GBV – as well as a very loyal fan base.
Working with co-producer Travis Harrison (who has manned the helm at many other Pollard-led projects and even been in a band with him called ESP Ohio) GBV has created a record that showcases the strength of the band's most recent lineup.
This feels like a culmination of the last few years of the live GBV experience, which non-US fans can enjoy through the magic of the internet.
There's an ease with which the instruments respond to each other, especially during the rockier songs, creating a wall of rhythm that benefits from its relative straightforwardness – less lead and more double-guitar rhythm playing.
The lineup of guitarists Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare Jr., bass player Mark Shue, and drummer Kevin March certainly provides a solid backbone for Pollard's twisted melodicism. Gillard and March were of course already among the “final” GBV lineup prior to the 2004 breakup and their presence is felt.
Though Gillard's lead playing has been a key component in the GBV sound for a long while, Zeppelin finds him mostly providing counter chordings or less-obvious lead playing. Considering the proggy quality of the vocal lines, this was a smart decision, letting the focus fully fall on the main melodies.
As such, there is a little more homogeneity found here than the usual Pollard/GBV output – though of course there is still a good bit of eclecticism. Even the first few songs act like a live-stage opener; a series of straightforward rockers.
Opener “Good Morning, Sir” is just a little over a minute of crunchy guitars atop a mid-tempo beat and stretchy vocal lines. It is followed by the hopping verses of “Step of the Wave”, which adds a little goth-gloom to its rock before moving onto the upbeat bop (and what sounds like a cowbell) of “Carapace”.
Things branch out with “Send In The Suicide Squad”, a triumphant power-pop that gets the album truly going with Pollard's longing melodic choices; the solemn off-kilter percussive-ness of “Blurring the Contact”; the baroque-balladry of “Bellicose Starling”; the mid-tempo bittersweet rocker “Charmless Peters”, and the fleeting acoustic-guitar instrumental seconds of the title track.
The best songs make themselves immediately known, with sparkling guitar riffs and more-immediate vocal lines.
“Einstein's Angel” and “We Can Make Music” are such tracks, pretty with Pollard's best melancholy melodies; “The Rally Boys” is another with its pulsing beat and smart guitar interplay. “Your Lights Are Out” harken back to the best days of GBV, in which off-kilter guitars somehow lead to unexpected melodic gloriousness.
Similarly, the punky “Where Have You Been All My Life” is compact GBV in all the best way – solid rhythms that move confidently yet not riding on rock'n'roll clichés. Almost-closer “My Future in Barcelona” takes all the best elements of mid-period (late 90s-early 2000s) GBV in creating another concert anthem.
Zeppelin Over China may not take GBV beyond the band's unrelentingly loyal fan-base; but for those who are familiar with the band and Pollard's work – and feel a bit of trepidation whenever another Pollard release comes on the market – it is safe to say that this is an album that stands out in his rich oeuvre. (ste)
