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Robert
Pollard
[robert
pollard website]
Choreographed Man of War
Sigh. I can't believe I went and bought
another one. I mean what is my tolerance level here? I think
this makes number five in a solo career that runs in parallel
with his fulltime job as front man for Guided
by Voices. It seems right from the start that Pollard
has actually done some editing on this album, trimming the
track count to ten (about half the normal runtime). I gotta
say, though, I don't love this album. I know it's supposed
to be some of his most mature work, but I've proved time and
time again that I don't go for mature. It's almost too dense
for me. The vocals are too buried in the mix, and there sounds
like there are too many people in the room. I guess I'm just
getting tired of the shtick at this point, or the songs aren't
the little nuggets they once were. He feels almost as thought
he's trying too hard to not be that guy anymore. |
From a Compound Eye
I really did give up trying to track Pollard's
solo stuff after Choreographed Man of War. That album
felt like a good spot on which to sever my loyalty and take
a break from the Fading Captain Series and the Douchebag on
a Cliff series and the whatever he felt like tooling around
with that week series. It just felt like the man was dumping
all his boxes of old tapes on us and charging us to help clean
out his closet. I'm not sure what brought me back into the
fold with this one, but I suppose it was the demise of GBV
and my longing for just one last blast of Pollard. I think
that rest did me well, as some of the stuff on this album
(despite it being way too long at 26 tracks) sounds different
from where I left off. Sure there's still the
Beatles/Who obsession, and the lyrics that make about
much sense as an old Cronenberg movie, but he does mix it
up a bit since my last exposure, mixing in some time signatures
and swings in tempo and production quality. Shit, the song
"The Right Thing" could have been a Live
song off of Throwing Copper or something. He even
shows a softer side on a few songs, and delves into some darker
stuff as well. It makes me happy to at least hear some variation
here, some new sounds and a kind of growly thunder that he
seemed to be missing on previous efforts. There is a song
on here that reminds me of Steely Dan' "Rikki Don't Lose
That Number," which kind of scares the crap out of me,
but whatever. |
Kid Marine
This album starts off with "Submarine
Teams," which features some sort of weird thing going
on throughout the song that sounds like some crazy person
shivering. Amazingly it works in the wacky world of Robert
Pollard, and is a really decent song. In fact a lot of songs
on this record have stuff going on in the background, and
all of it isn't tape hiss. Three albums into his solo career
(while still putting out GBV
albums), Pollard has dialed back the homemade thing somewhat
in favor of crafting fully fleshed out songs. The one issue
that has plagued him throughout his career is the flame out
syndrome of starting a song really strong and then it just
kind of going up in smoke ninety seconds in. He's like the
songwriting equivalent of a Saturday Night Live skit.
It seems here he's trying to actually present songs, and not
just quickly scribbled good ideas. |
Normal Happiness
Wow, it's the new "peppy" Robert
Pollard. Sunshiny and ready to rock ën roll. Of course he's
just as obtuse as ever, with tittles like "Supernatural
Car Lover" and "Pegasus Glue Factory," but
the album itself somehow feels more coherent. It could be
the good mood that Bob has all of a sudden found himself in,
or just the overall tone of the thing, but it's certainly
a departure from his normal sequencing. I do dig the production
better here too. The wall of sound crunchiness has faded away,
and left the music and Pollard's voice to speak more for itself.
Gone is all the gimmickry, too, letting the good stuff bleed
through. This is his most listenable solo album so far (and
it only took eight tries). There is one song, "Gasoline
Ragtime" that sounds oddly Police-like
to me, and kind of freaked me out a little bit the first time
I heard it. Sure it ain't arty and deep, but this is actually
a pretty good little sunny pop album. |
Not In My Airforce
It's always difficult detangling Robert
Pollard from GBV. I mean
they are one and the same. So what happens when the man that
is the band goes solo? And what happens when the other man
from said band, Tobin Sprout,
also releases a solo album at the same time? The temptation
is to compare the two solo albums against the band output,
and then against each other. Who was the real talent here?
It turns out, of course, it's impossible to tell because Pollard
was so tight-fisted about song writing on the GBV albums that
Sprout's voice was all but drowned out on those records. Listening
to Not in My Airforce, Pollard's debut solo record,
we still hear a lot of Alien Lanes GBV going on.
Little pop ditties buried in home recording quality hiss,
and lots of subdued guitar plucking. This is a decent intro
into the ever expanding mind of Robert Pollard, and is probably
one of his better solo records for those fans of the older
GBV stuff. |
Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire
Department
Whoa, did Pollard actually use a professional
studio for this one? There has been a general trend towards
cleaner production with each of his solo efforts, and this,
his fourth, sounds, dare I say, almost professional. It's
not like the guy has gone all Radiohead
on us or anything, but it's nice to actually be able to hear
the bass in his tracks for once. Of course with the fuller
sound comes some loss of intimacy, but this is a guy who's
always wanted to be Roger Daltrey (with the leg kicks and
everything) so there was no way he'd shy away from the stadium
sound forever. Again, I can't imagine any of these songs being
played for a packed Wembley Stadium or anything, but even
baby steps for this geezer is an amazing act of contrition
to a lifelong fuzzmaster. One does wonder at this point how
he chooses what goes on the GBV
albums versus what gets the solo tag. Of course the parallel
GBV album at this time was Do the Collapse, which
was produced by Ric Ocasek (complete with his keyboards and
shit), so it's not like this record sounds even close to as
polished as that one. I think this, however, was where I started
to wonder when the hell he was going to stop pumping out these
albums. My patience for spending money was wearing thin. |
Waved Out
Another album of Pollard doing his thing.
This, his sophomore solo effort, is a little less hissy than
his debut, having a more fleshed out sound, but still following
the same Ohio by way of England lo-fi guitar rock vibe with
nonsensical lyrics and a definite feeling that he's enjoying
himself. He even tries to rock it out stadium style (albeit
in a lo-fi kind of way) on "Subspace Biographies,"
which is not a bad bashing rock song if I do say so myself.
Pollard also clearly has a "Norwegian Wood" era
Beatles fascination that busts
out on certain songs, but then quickly hides behind another
straight-up rock song. He even experiments on this one with
some oddball noises like on "Whiskey Ships" (a song
that reminds me of Archers
of Loaf for some reason) where there's some sort of bizarre
stereo huffing going on. It's a solid output, but still feels
like a bit of an extras thing. |
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