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ALL MUSIC GUIDE Review ALTERNATIVE PRESS Review by Bill Cohen Guided By Voices mastermind & Co. go on a weird psychedelic tangent. Just when Robert Pollard seemed doomed for the indie-rock graveyard littered with Lou Barlows and Bob Mould, he releases his best group album since Guided By Voices - 1994 opus Bee Thousand. Although it bears little resemblance to Pollard's Guided By Voices era work, Ringworm Interiors captures the same devil-may-care spirit that infused the singer's earlier albums with such greatness. Comprising of Pollard and brothers Todd and Tim Tobias, Circus Devils romp through a series of tightly wound art-punk anthems that wouldn't sound out of place on a late-'70's Wire album. A ferocious listen that slathers plenty of artsy-fartsy weirdness onto it's punky tunes, Ringworm Interiors proves that Pollard hasn't blown his load yet. AQUARIUS RECORDS Review New project from Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices... and it's great, probably the best thing he's done in years. Thank goodness! We were afraid he'd lost it, y'know. The guy is so prolific that it's hard to keep up the enthusiasm when the quality of his recent work has been, to put it nicely, inconsistent. But lemme tell ya, he paired up with the right band this time, brothers Todd and Tim Tobias (anybody know from these guys?), who inject the GBV jangly indie sound with adrenaline, distortion, kick ass energy, and *noise*. Actually the only relation to GBV here is Pollard's delivery, cos the music is completely different. When Pollard isn't singing, the Tobiases take over with howls and yowls of pure instrumental ferocity. Parts of it are angular and arty, like Gang of Four or Wire. Sometimes there's a Stooges-like hollow roar, sometimes it's a metallic blast of Pere Ubu-style Cleveland punk... 28 short sharp snapshot songs in 42 minutes. Excellent. MAGNET MAGAZINE Review by Patrick Bekery Those longing for the daze of the 28-song GBV/Robert Pollard outings with song titles like ìStraps Hold Up The Jawî and ìStar Peppered Wheat Germî will wet themselves over the debut from Circus Devils, which includes music from the Tobias brothers, Tim and Todd (from Gem) and lyrics and vocals by Pollard. Ringworm Interiors is rampant with the scattershot blasts of guitar hiss, four-track fuckery and non-sequitur lyrical fragments that a long night of drinking, jamming and coming up with fake band names in the basement can give birth to. The occasional flourish of anglo-centric melody like ìApparent The Red Angusî makes the whole mess more palatable for those who aren't GBV completists or Pollard obsessives. If you don't fall into either of these categories, it could be a long night in the basement. PORTLAND TRIBUNE Review by JC As another of Robert Pollard's distraction projects, Circus Devils rates as one of his better ones. Pollard is the ringleader of indie-rock rowdies Guided by Voices and is well known for his prolific output of music outside of his main band. Here, he teams with Tim and Todd Tobias for a brisk set of sludgy guitar anthems, grating siren blasts of noise and even some delicate pop shards such as "You First" which stand out among the din like fluffly little bunnies capering about in a bubbling primordial tar pit. Like all of Pollard's efforts, there are sublime entries, inexplicable sound bits and funny, aggressive nonsense. He's a puzzling fellow, to be sure, but a resourceful and colorful one as well. ERASING CLOUDS Review by Dave Heaton Noisy, abrasive, scary and just plain weird, Circus Devils' Ringworm Interiors lives up to its title, and then some. Most of Robert Pollard's work under names besides Guided By Voices gets the critical reaction that it's only for diehard GBV fans. While on one level, this album, a collaboration with Todd Tobias (brother of GBV/Gem bassist Tim Tobias), deserves that reaction more than any other release, on another level this isn't necessarily for GBV fans at all. This has little in common with GBV's arena-rock, and is likely to appeal to music fans interested in extreme rock, in music which is rooted in rock but which pushes the usual boundaries. This is a psychedelic mindtrip into a confused, damaged mind. Heavy metal textures meld with non-sequitur lyrics delivered by many means of vocalizing (few of which would be described as "good singing"), and everything's cloaked in more feedback and fuzz than you can imagine. There's also searing guitar-work (some courtesy of Tim Tobias) from start to finish. While some of the more direct songs (like "World 3," for example) demonstrate that hard rock is at this music's core, this is rock music that's been transformed into something dark and strange. With Ringworm Interiors, my first reaction was to yell "What the hell is this?" and quickly throw it asideÖthose who give up too soon, however, miss being taken deep into a unique musical world. It's not a world likely to appeal to mass audiences, but it is an unmistakably distinct one that you won't soon forget. |
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