It\u2019s nearly impossible to read (or write) a review of a Guided By Voices record that doesn\u2019t reference the sheer volume of releases the band cranks out. Two per year is the minimum, three is common, and more is not unusual. Back in the days when Tobin Sprout was playing guitar and adding his wonderfully wistful lo-fi pop sensibility, I\u2019ll admit that I often found it taxing to wade through the fragments and unfinished ideas. Granted, when the pay-off was a song like \u201cI Am A Scientist\u201d it was certainly worth the effort. (And, yes, I\u2019m saying that Bee Thousand<\/i> loses my attention at points.) But Tobin departed, line-ups shifted, the band ended, line-ups coalesced and line-ups re-coalesced, and now this version with Tobin\u2019s successor, Doug Gillard, back on guitar, along with Bobby Bare Jr.., Kevin March playing drums and Mark Shue on bass, has been with GBV mastermind Robert Pollard for something like 30 records. That might not even be an overestimate.<\/p>\n
Another thing that\u2019s changed is that, while those incredible pop hooks are not as frequent, gone entirely are the fragments and ephemera. Now every song sounds fully considered and fleshed out and, given what that means in terms of sheer number of tunes, the success rate is pretty much unprecedented. <\/p>\n
So now we arrive at La La Land<\/i>, the first GBV record of 2023. It\u2019s safe to say that if you\u2019ve enjoyed the last, oh, 15 GBV records you\u2019re going to like this one. As do I. And La La Land<\/i> continues the muscular, mid-tempo, mid-period Who-style rock and roll songwriting that has characterized the current line-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother Day To Heal\u201d starts things off in typically rollicking fashion. Then there\u2019s the \u201960s jangle of \u201cReleased Into Dementia\u201d and the tuneful, pastoral \u201cBallroom Etiquette.\u201d \u201cQueen Of Spaces\u201d provides a little acoustic\u2026 space. The piano-led \u201cSlowly On The Wheel,\u201d which breaks into a soaring sing-along second half, is a favorite. Those slightly melancholy vocal hooks are what I love most about GBV, even if I can rarely figure out what the lyrics are about. \u201cCousin Jackie,\u201d is another hard-hitting rocker as is \u201cWild Kingdom\u201d and \u201cFace Eraser.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which brings us to the difficulty of reviewing present-day GBV: it\u2019s hard to keep finding adjectives to describe consistency. There isn\u2019t anything on this record that I can say doesn\u2019t work. So I\u2019ll just say that La La Land<\/i> doesn\u2019t quite have as many high points as last year\u2019s Crystal Nuns Cathedral<\/i> or 2017\u2019s How Do You Spell Heaven<\/i>, but it\u2019s a good listen. And one thing is for sure: if you want to hear what GBV comes up with next, you won\u2019t have to wait long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":34698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6240],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46553","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-guided-by-voices","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46553"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46553"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}