ROBERT POLLARD
FROM A COMPOUND EYE
MERGE

NATIONAL POST
By Mark Lepage

At world's end: Cockroaches, Keef and a new Pollard disc

"Side four." Them's fighting words. The boozy auteur behind Guided By Voices releases another solo, and its length -- 26 songs delivered into four "sides" -- promises at first glance to deliver a migraine. Instead, it confirms Pollard as the Keith Richards of songwriting: an anomaly who breaks normal rules and laughs. In 26 songs -- noise fragments like Kensington Cradle or the Lady Jane-style minstrelsy Cock Of The Rainbow -- he makes records the way every indie dreamer wishes he could: prolific, impenetrable, brilliant. Lyrics ("the physical fourth/and the space half") are always forgivable given his bottomless access to the parallel universe of infinite hooks. And anyway, he's due for another album any week now.