| Home | Fading Captain Series | GBV News | The Band | The Music | The Critics & Fans | Merchandise | Other Stuff |
CMJ New Music Report
Issue 626 - July 12, 1999
By Colin Helms
Over the course of its last half-dozen releases, Guided By Voices has been threatening to abandon its indie-hero status and give its arena-worthy, but lo-fi, anthems a studio shine. Do The Collapse finally makes good on those threats. Recorded in 24-track splendor and overseen by producer Ric Ocasek, GBV's 11th full-length is undisputedly the combo's most "complete" album, both in terms of songwriting - most of Robert Pollard's tunes seem to have true beginnings, middles and ends - and fidelity - the bigger studio budget only enhances the quartet's stadium-sized anthems and burly guitar wallop. Glossiness aside, this latest GBV epic holds true to Pollard's now-trademark mix of British Invasion-style melodicism, classic rock bombast and scrappy, basement-band vigor. His stungun hooks have always been the shimmering diamonds in the Ohioans' lo-fi rough, and Ocasek mines those rocks with an ear for the big melodic payoff. While the very concept of these underground legends making a "big," radio-ready album may seem like sacrilege, GBV has managed to go "'mersh" without sacrificing any of its personality - see Pollard's reliably intriguing wordplay - or gleaming melodic strength.