Do you want to know why upstart record reviewers should avoid press releases altogether? Sure, there are moments where you can use the trivial information in the review itself and sure, it’s a godsend when you’re reviewing a new band and you want to use the bio sheet to identify the name of the fey lead singer of one of the song’s you halfway enjoyed. But there’s also those press releases that are so full of themselves that you’re turned off before you even hit “play.”
And then there are those-particularly with older, more established artists-that litter the press sheet with so much bullshit that you put the album at the bottom of the pile rather than towards the top where it originally sat in your review pile.
Such was the case of Robert Pollard’s Space City Kicks, a record whose press release states how it’s Pollard “at his loosest and most free, under which conditions he very often produces his finest work.” This translated to me as “Here’s another Robert Pollard album of drunken, poorly fretted shanties recorded on a JC Penny portable cassette deck” before I immediately thought of something else to review first.
When I finally got around to Bob’s release-riddled with low expectations and still searching for reasons why I should just avoid it-I was surprised at such basic things like fidelity, clever guitar patterns and a general sense of intelligent melodies.
In short, I was impressed at how good Space City Kicks began to lift off as a decently, enjoyable post-Guided By Voices offering, the kind that makes the notion of a non-active GBV world somewhat tolerable.
By GVB standards, Space City Kicks gives proper production attention to an album of quick knock-offs and attention-deficit verse-chorus-verse offerings. There’s plenty inside of those brief sparks of memorable hooks and, yes, the prerequisite amount of Pollard bullshit where he seems more intent on extending the running time than with quality control.
At the same time, it’s hard to knock a Bob Pollard album that tallies more good than bad in an 18-track release.
Opening with a kinetic “Mr. Fantastic Must Die,” Space City Kicks hints at the record’s alternating weird and accessible vibe before gutting straight into the “Love Is Like Oxygen” half step of the title track.
The first four tracks are winners, before everything turns into a bipolar menu of quality and confusion. It’s a record that provides great compilation fodder or IPod playlist material while still managing to confound anyone who’s hoping for a winning, start-to-finish long-player. And just at the point where you begin to get frustrated, Bob plops in a gem like “Something Strawberry” or “Woman To Fly.”
As with any Robert Pollard album, there’s probably a few more records yet to come this year and in those yet-to-be-recorded releases, there probably lies the remaining tracks that probably could have turned Space City Kicks into a real-life galaxy of Pollard hits.
1 comment:
That's better!
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