REVIEW: Robert Pollard, Waved Out (Matador)
- Robin Lapid
Dayton, Ohio's Guided By Voices are one of the best reasons that the nebulous terms "indie" and "lo-fi" were created, turning out a slew of Beatles outtakes and pop songs that hovered anywhere from 30 seconds and up. Lead singer and mastermind Robert Pollard has put out a second solo album, and with Waved Out, he attempts to expand his muse beyond beautifully jarring lo-fi pop into prog and postpunk freakouts.
The tracks on Waved Out tend to fit more snugly into the radio-friendly 3-minute format, and drift from psychedelic and punk experimentation to GbV-flavored tunes like the lovely acoustic "Caught Waves Again" and the one-minute "Steeple of Knives," which would be just as at home on Alien Lanes as they would on a Pollard solo work. There's a bit more prog guitar on the album, though, and relatively less "lo-fi" sound, but Pollard's almost scratchy, almost-plaintive voice always sounds like the epitome of good lo-fi pop to me anyway. I can't see any GbV or Pollard fan being disappointed in the work, although they might be a bit disrupted by the shifts in soundscape.
