Guided By Voices - Let's Go Eat The Factory

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5...according to our Business Lady on Thu 12 Jan, 2012.

Got a confession to make...I've never been a big fan of Guided By Voices. I'm not sure why, after all they tick most of my boxes in terms of style and content and they were highly active at the most significant period in my musical development. I guess it's the volume of work I always found daunting. These lads seriously knock it out. I mean, they didn't even intend to to make a new record when the classic line-up reconvened to reap the rewards of the 'bands should reform for money and glory' culture we are currently stuck with, but here they are with a mammoth 21 track LP that taps into the best periods of their illustrious career without destroying the legacy of the band. Seasoned GBV fans like Clinton and Dave are not massively taken by this album (yet) but this is my third listen now and I'm totally down. This may have something to do with the dire state of new releases at the moment but, more likely, it's a reflection on Pollard and gang's ability to conjure fantastic pop music so effortlessly from their booze soaked fingers. There are some fantastic tunes here, like second single 'The Unthinkable Fats Domino', 'Waves', 'Chocolate Boy' and 'How I Met My Mother'. There are also some hilarious moments like when Pollard adopts his Greg Lake style prog vocal style on 'Hang Mr Kite' or the various stabs at Beatles-esque psych-pop that still sound slightly clumsy (yet no less charming I might add) in his/their hands. Album highlight for me is 'God Loves Us'. Clocking in at 1:28 minutes it's a perfect piece of music whose chugging guitar motif and earworm melody never intended to outstay its welcome. I could play it over and over. Safe to say that GBV totally deliver here, unlike the other cash-in fuckjobs doing the rounds. And you gotta love them kick outs!!! Thanks lads.

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Guided By Voices classic lineups first album of new material in fifteen years! After a fifteen year hiatus, the "classic line up" of Guided By Voices (Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Greg Demos, and Kevin Fennell) finishes off its year-long reunion tour by releasing an album of 21 new songs, deliberately choosing to return to what bandleader Robert Pollard calls the "semi-collegial" approach of iconic GBV albums like Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. Let's Go Eat The Factory is much more than a mere return, however: sprawling, variegated, heavy, melodic, and yet still recognizably and coherently Guided By Voices in both its literal and mythic senses. "At first I said: no reunion, period," explains Pollard about the decision to revive Guided By Voices. "And definitely no record or re-formation. But the tour went so well; the response was really unexpected. I thought at some point that a lot of people would like to hear new GBV music. The chemistry was still there." Choosing to eschew the recording studio, LGETF was instead manufactured in the living rooms, basements, and garages of various long-time bandmembers. Some tracks were recorded more-or-less live at Mitch Mitchell's garage, where the band would often practice back in the early- and mid-90s. These sessions comprised Mitch, Bob, and Jimmy Pollard, Bob's brother and long-time collaborator, who, though never a part of the touring ensemble, always played a crucial role on the classic-era releases. Some tracks were improvised over acoustic jam sessions at Greg Demos' house. Many were recorded at Tobin Sprout's place in Wherever, Michigan, and later lovingly fucked with in order to achieve the proper level of weirdness. Band members occasionally switched instruments (Bob plays drums; Mitch plays drums; Kevin plays drums; Jimmy Pollard plays bass; Greg plays lead guitar; Toby plays pretty much everything; etc.), and Bob gladly accepted input from other band members. Tobin Sprout wrote or co-wrote and sings on six out of the 21 songs. The aesthetic is very much in keeping with Guided By Voices, but in some unexpected ways (more prevalent use of keyboards and samples, for one thing) the 21st century can't help but poke its nose into the resulting music. Devoted fans of Bee Thousand will not be disappointed in, for instance, the demonically tuneful "Chocolate Boy," or the relentless chug of "We Won't Apologize For The Human Race," which Tobin Sprout describes as "Peter Gabriel singing 'I Am The Walrus.'" Other standouts include "Doughnut For A Snowman," which Pollard calls "the goofiest, twinkliest song I've ever written," or "Spider Fighter," a Tobin Sprout number that was in fact the first song title conceived for the new album, and which features a piano coda that Pollard likens to "a Pete Townshend demo for Lifehouse." ‘Let's Go Eat The Factory’ will be released January 16th 2012 on Fire Records. A 7” single with exclusive B-sides ‘Doughnut For A Snowman’ is released on Fire 28th November 2011. Guided By Voices is Robert Pollard, Mitch Mitchell, Kevin Fennell, Tobin Sprout, Greg Demos with Jimmy Pollard.