As some readers of this site will notice, I stopped reviewing Guided By Voices albums. I can't remember how many I've missed here, but it was clear with a recent one that there would be diminishing returns with each GBV record. So, I didn't see much to champion about the band I loved so much in earlier decades.
Now this new Robert Pollard outfit, Rip Van Winkle, isn't exactly a complete return to form, but it's a start. Dirty, unruly riffs, and brutal drums (from Jason Short) give a number like "Poolhall Tactics" a spark I've not heard on the last handful of GBV albums, while "Shitheel Man" proves that Robert Pollard can still do a neat mix of the catchiness of Cheap Trick with the surliness of Seventies Stones. That said, there's crap here too like there's been on the GBV records I didn't review here (and even on some I did); "A Mirror Off" and "This is My Thriller" make a short record (28 minutes) seem longer than it is.
At their best, Rip Van Winkle almost catch fire. If this had been a half-hour of stuff like "By The Water", I'd be raving about this the way I did about Pollard's Cub Scout Bowling Pins project, one of his best records in a decade. Still, for all my churlish fan-boy griping, there's just a smidgen of fire here, enough that I'm happy to review this where I had purposely skipped a GBV record or two. Robert Pollard is likely never going to reach the heights he scaled in the Nineties or after, but this Rip Van Winkle effort sees him take one or two tiny steps up that same mountain-side again.
Blasphemy by Rip Van Winkle is out now via Splendid Research Records / Rockathon Records.
[Photo: Rockathon Records]