It was 33 years ago that Robert Pollard recorded what was almost the last Guided by Voices album, Same Place The Fly Got Smashed, which would have been a complete travesty to music. Now you can go to your favorite local record store and buy a new reissue of this album via Scat Records, the first label that truly believed in Bob and co.
The Guided By Voices archive resembles a murmuration by now with thousands of melodies and ideas flocking together to create a singular movement, in which individual elements matter less than the beauty created by the entire whole. Nowhere To Go But Up is a minor, but essential, part of this greater entity.
Guided By Voices has had a very busy forty years, though their thirty-seven albums only prove that you can have quantity without wavering quality. Welshpool Frillies arrived almost exactly six months to the day after their last album, La La Land, after a prolific run of eight albums in the last three years.
Robert Pollard, the frenetically brilliant leader / creator of Dayton’s cult heroes Guided By Voices, writes a lot of songs. A lot of songs, a lot of albums, a lot of music, even a countless array of alter egos. La La Land represents a direct follow-up to Tremblers and Goggles By Rank, or as Pollard says, “somewhat of a companion piece.”
As anyone who reads our “Fuzzy Meadows” column already knows, the “list” is just the beginning, and we’re always eager to add some “Further Listening” for consideration. Despite what some would have you believe, music is not a contest. We profiled many records in our “Year In Review” feature, but the fun doesn’t stop there.
Their 35th full length record Crystal Nuns Cathedral relies on their modern brand of rock and roll with some added quirks as a nod towards their more experimental history. Much like many of their recent albums, the instrumental quality is clearer and more fleshed out. Pollard’s sugary melodies are the centerpoint of each track.
