Boston Globe Review 1/19/2000

Boston Globe
By Joan Anderman, Globe Correspondent, 1/19/2000

Voices' irresistible nonstop pop

One hundred twenty minutes. Forty songs (give or take however many can be played
during the average restroom visit, which in Guided by Voices' musical cosmos
could amount to as many as three). Do the math, and you're left with a
full-to-bursting batch of nonstop tuneage, a veritable little-engine-that-could,
and still can - after 18 years - deliver indie-pop treats to all the wide-eyed
boys and girls.

''You know I can talk to you till your ears are numb, but I can't say it like.
`Dragon's Awake!''' said singer/songwriter Robert Pollard in a well-sauced
preamble to song 17. Even before the many beers he'd consumed up to that point,
Pollard proved himself a man who understands, seemingly on a cellular level, the
supreme power of a three-minute pop song. Until recently, the Dayton, Ohio,
band's sounds were hissy and arty and of the garage. But even a brilliantly
cruddy aesthetic starts to sound like a study in lo-fi cliches after awhile.

Guided by Voices' new, 11th full-length album, ''Do the Collapse'' (produced by
ex-Car Ric Ocasek), is cleaner and slicker, but by no means a commercial
sellout. Onstage at the sold-out Middle East (last night's show sold out as
well), Pollard and bandmates Doug Gillard on guitar, drummer Jim McPherson, and
bassist Greg Demos found the anything-but-still point between the scrappy gems
of yore and the bristling, orderly bustle of the new. The band was splendidly
generous if somewhat anonymous - the fallout, perhaps, of playing in Pollard's
impossibly long shadow, which precedes him. ''Pop Zeus'' pretty well described
Pollard's stature in indie-rock circles. But the players valiantly saturated the
master's hooks with smashing washes of sound so voluminous one's scalp literally
quivered.

For die-hard fans, GBV's pageant of raucous, winsome nuggets was a slice of
heaven. For non-devotees, a certain sameness set in. It would be going too far
to call Pollard a one-trick pony; let's say his muse is pristinely focused. And
yet even that lack of stylistic dynamic was tempered by the sheer wonder of this
man's prolific, often poetic output of skewed, shimmering melodies and
thrill-seeker beats.

In fact, there are simply no bad apples in the batch. So it comes down to
fingering high points: ''Teenage FBI,'' the new album's first single; ''Surgical
Focus,'' another new song that redefines (again) the notion of irresistible;
''Zoo Pie''; ''Bee Thousand''; ''Official Ironman Rally Song''; a puzzler that
featured some of Pollard's weirder chord changes; and the new ''An Unmarketed
Product,'' a sweet, snotty little speedball.

The show, surprisingly, spiraled to a thick, grungy finish. ''I Am a Tree'' and
''Hot Freaks'' set the lubed and lugubrious tone - the sonic complement to
Pollard's heavy eyelids and beer-soaked fingers.

Barely out of their teens, the American Flag - whose self-titled CD is out on
Pollard's Rockathon label - opened the show with a set of glammy, hammy
bubblegum. The seven-piece band's tight white button-down shirts and bad
haircuts, gnarly guitar parts and falsetto choruses evoked memories of junior
high dances in the gym; the songs were likewise giddy and irritating.