Robert Pollard releases so many albums with his various bands you’d be forgiven for losing touch with Guided by Voices’ voluminous output, but there’s never been a better time to check back in with these indie rock lifers. If there’s one thing we can count on these days, it’s that Guided By Voices will put out a couple of albums per year at minimum. “La La Land“, the first GBV album of 2023 marks the 14th(!) LP from the indie-rock institution’s current line-up. Fans old enough to remember when that lineup debuted in 2017 with “August By Cake” will note that the sound has evolved quite a bit in just a six-year span. In the words of uber-prolific bandleader Bob Pollard himself, “La La Land” hews in the direction of “longer, more adventurous” songs. Of course, “longer” is a relative term here. Pollard first etched his mark as an avatar of the ’90s lo-fi aesthetic by releasing scratchy four-track recordings that sometimes amounted to little more than sketches of an idea. Over time—and a tremendous volume of output—Pollard’s obsession with economy grew into a bona-fide craft. Which is to say that he and the band can cover a lot of ground in three minutes or less. On “Queen of Spaces,” for example, acoustic guitars recall the pastoral English folk that nourished the early work of prog giants like Yes and Jethro Tull.
Meanwhile, billowing piano chords send the song soaring towards a mix of vocal-jazz sophistication and pop-ballad bombast that would once have been unthinkable for Pollard to attempt, much less pull-off. (There’s plenty of trademark GBV rock too.) If the axiom that scarcity creates value applies in just about every other realm of life, it doesn’t hold up so well with GBV’s latter-day output. By releasing a glut of music early in his career, Pollard cemented his reputation as a relentlessly prolific creator who almost couldn’t help but open the floodgate. But in the last half-decade or so, Guided By Voices has benefited from Pollard’s unsung self-editing instincts. Sure, when Pollard trimmed the fat in the past, he often cut too much meat off the bone as well. But that’s no longer the case. As ornately developed (and varied) as anything in the GBV canon, “La La Land” puts an exclamation point on what’s turned out to be a rather remarkable late-stage renaissance.
It’s tempting to take a band for granted when they’ve made almost 40 albums, but the Dayton lo-fi indie rock vets have some serious momentum going, with the sophisticated melodies and prog-forward trajectory of their last few records. “La La Land” is another engaging and expansive step up. Highlights: “Instinct Dwelling,” “Slowly on the Wheel,” “Cousin Jackie”
The Fat Angel Sings 