Indie and Lo-Fi music reviews

This is absolutely one of my favorite albums of 2004. I own this on CD and vinyl and decided to sell my CD and buy the DualDisc instead. I love the fact that I have a digital version of "I Got It All" now! A 5.1 surround mix would have been nice, but the stereo mix on the DVD side still sounds better than the CD-quality audio. The music videos are a cool thing to have, and the animations from the website are just a gimme.

Overall, if you don't own this album yet, pick up the DualDisc. If you do own this on CD, sell it and upgrade to the DualDisc you won't be sorry! It's definitely worth the extra $2.

I only gave this 4 stars because of the absense of a surround mix.

this is the first guided by voices record i've ever had to force myself to listen to in the vain attempt of having it grow on me. the first few songs are nice enough, but then it devolves into some of the most mediocre songwriting ever put forth by the god of all songwriters. i just don't get it.

thankfully, pollard has the wits left to save the best for last. huffman prairie flying field is marvlous. a very nice way to cap of the GbV canon. maybe i'm wrong here, but from a compound eye, pollard's excellent post-GbV debut, sounds much fresher and adventuresome. in the end, who cares what i think. bob has enough material out there that eventually even the most hardcore of fans (i.e.-me) will not love everything he puts out.

god bless robert pollard and anyone of the forty (or so) bandmates honored to have played under that nameplate.

"But in this grey morn of man's life/ Cometh sometime to the mind/ A little light that leaps and flies/ Like a star borne on the wind./ A star of nowhere, a nameless star/ A light that spins and swirls/ And cries that even in hedge and hill,/ Even on Earth, it may go ill/ At last with the evil earls./ A dancing sparkle, a doubtful star/ On the waste wind whirled and driven/ But it seems to sing of a wilder worth,/ A time discrowned of doom and birth,/ And the kingdom of the poor on Earth/ Come as it is in Heaven." -G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse bk. IV


GBV's music actually makes me feel as I felt the first time Nadine F. looked over her shoulder at me in the eighth grade- in short, transported. If there is another band that so seamlessly melds plaintive melodicism and seething aggression, they're superfluous. GBV are sorely missed.

Bob is a GoddoG as I boB. Sorry- Bob mentioned palindromes on the Watch Me Jumpstart documentary and that's the best I can do. But if you like evocative music that, unlike much of the Emo bilge currently being hawked by the earless, comes across as sincere and also f***in' RAWKS, you do yourself a disservice if you neglect the GBV catalog. Newcomers could do much worse than to start with this, Voices' last official studio album, and work backward. Solid, plangent, gorgeous, quirky...Get it.

Some people hated it,some say it grows on you and they're both wrong. The only song that I had to really let seep in was "Sleep Over Jack",the instruments going off in almost completely different directions,with only Robert Pollard's voice carrying the melody. It took a minute,but it's a pretty groovy little number. I found the rest of the album to be quite accessable,with the catchy,R.A.W.K-ing opener "Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud(When I'm Not Looking)" pulling you in quickly and with a minimum of fuss. The ballads "Window Of My World" and "Girls Of Wild Strawberries" are sweet and beautiful,and the catchy little tune "Gonna Never Have To Die" is very cool.
For me,the real prize is the 1-2 punch in the middle of the album. The raw,beautifully catchy "The Closets Of Henry" has an heir of meloncholy streaming through it's unstoppable chorus and the heartbreakingly sad(and well titled)"Tour Guide At The Winston Churchill Memorial" blows me away upon every repeat listen,of which there have been(and will continue to be) many. In my opinion,"Half Smiles Of The Decomposed" is definitely an upper-class effort from GBV. Full of hopeful melody and bittersweet vibration,this is a beautiful way to go. If you disagree,well,too bad...