Guided By Voices: Do The Collapse

"Are you amplified to rock," Robert Pollard asked on the opening track of Guided By Voices' breakthrough album, 1994's Bee Thousand. Part of that album's charm, and GBV's initial appeal, was that Pollard wasn't amplified to rock. Bee Thousand, Propeller, Vampire On Titus, and Alien Lanes, the albums of Guided By Voices' fruitful adolescence, were great in part because their desire to rock constantly fought against both the relatively primitive sound of their recordings and Pollard's often fragmented songwriting. The wish to be amplified to rock was more important than the fact itself. Still, that didn't make the desire go away; Pollard may not have been amplified, but he wanted to be. Two albums for Matador, Under The Bushes Under The Stars and Mag Earwhig!, explored the middle ground between the old approach and the lure of proper production and fully fleshed out songwriting; the results were enjoyable, if more tentative. Now Pollard and a new GBV lineup are back with a new label, a new album, and a much more polished sound courtesy of producer Ric Ocasek. Polished, but no less eccentric: Crisp as an electric spark, Ocasek's production work cleans up GBV's sound without stripping it of its color. If the song titles ("Teenage FBI," "Dragons Awake!," "Mushroom Art") weren't enough of a tip-off, one listen is enough to again confirm Pollard's place as classic rock's most eccentric torchbearer. As usual, Do The Collapse is filled with guitar-driven pop songs that are sure to be hits on an alternate-universe radio station driven by quality, and with Pollard's less accessible compositions finding homes on his always-interesting solo albums (two so far this year, along with a rarities compilation), the likelihood of new listeners feeling left out is minimal. Do The Collapse, GBV's best album since Alien Lanes, suggests a band entering into a maturity that's potentially fruitful in the extreme, and that rocks.