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A-ha, another dirty guitar
offering from a bunch of twentysomethings that we
can listen to when we have finished with The Hives, The Vines, The White Stripes and The Libertines? No, Guided By Voices have been around since 1986 and have at least eight studio albums to their credit, although they did tour with The Strokes last year.
Nevertheless, Earthquake Glue didn't blow my mind. I don't
feel like I have been missing out all these years,
although it does have some redeeming features. Many of
the songs are ideal amateur BMX video soundtracks,
which is a backhanded compliment. There is some nice
jingly jangly guitar and Robert Pollard's voice, which
at times resembles that of many early 1990s English acts, is
constant and perfectly matches the lo-fi quality of
the recording.
The album clocks in at 45 minutes and holds 15 tracks. For the
less mathematically minded (bare with me here), this
equates to roughly three minutes a song. Throw in a couple at
over four and a half minutes, and the average drops to nearer two
minutes. This leaves no time for guitar solos. The
traditional verse, chorus, verse, chorus set-up is
dropped, which does make for some interesting
listening. It will be listening, mind, because you wont be
singing along to many of these songs, or find yourself
whistling them as you walk down the street.
The opening track, My Kind Of
Soldier, opens with a punchy start and is one of the
likely singles. My Son, My Secretary and My Country
opens with a brass band before dropping into a
Pink Floyd acoustic guitar and some nice
imagery on the lyrics front.
As you can see, one of the things Guided By Voices do have
going for them is some great song titles. Others include I'll Replace
You With Machines, Useless Inventions, A Trophy Mule
In Particular and Of Mites And Men.
In retrospect this is a strange
one. Existing fans of the band will no doubt lap it
up, as will many fans of the lo-fi genre, but I can't help
feeling that Guided By Voices are going to remain a
satellite band on the verge of mainstream British
success. This is not necessarily a bad thing because they are playing what
they want to play. More joy to them.
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