Well, 42 studio albums is certainly something. Thick Rich and Delicious by Guided By Voices is that big number for Robert Pollard and crew. I suppose Pollard is going to go for at least 50 so pretty sure this isn't the end, for good or bad.
This newest GBV record is fairly brief, and that brevity gives this more charm than some recent efforts from these folks. Lead single "(You Can't Go Back To) Oxford Talawanda" is silly but catchy, while the better "Phantasmagoric Upstarts" channels "Magic Bus"-era Who very effectively. The punchy "Lucy's World", a sort of highlight here, took me back to some of the stuff I liked on Isolation Drills, and the guitar attack was at least more invigorating than some Voices records this side of the century's turn.
Thick Rich and Delicious works modestly well. It's a more pleasant listen than some of the recent GBV records, including a couple we didn't even review here. The band's progress is stunted, of course, but thankfully on this album their sound is stuck in a kind of tribute to The Who circa-A Quick One (While He's Away). There are worse things I could write about a band than that they sound like a group trying to rewrite "So Sad About Us" over and over again for 35 minutes.
Thick Rich and Delicious by Guided By Voices is out now. Details below.
[Photo: Trevor Naud]