Robert Pollard - Space City Kicks

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.

Robert Pollard - Normal Happiness

Let me get this straight: we’re supposed to forgive an artist for lackluster efforts merely on the grounds that they release records on an exponential rate? If anything, these artists should be held accountable with even more scrutiny for expecting fans to open their wallets so frequently while running the risk of buying the inevitable dud.

We should start with Robert Pollard.

I’m asking you to let Pollard foot the bill himself for Normal Happiness, a forgettable attempt at guitar pop that shows him going through the motions while providing little to disprove that his best days ended on December 31, 2004. It’s not right that you should have to shell out for output like this that is both creatively sub par and reeking of safely honing a genre that already has an ample amount of indifference.

Normal Happiness is Pollard’s 2nd effort since disbanding Guided By Voices, and it does nothing to promote their legacy or to enhance his own. By my count, less than half of the record’s 16 tracks rate higher than a Suitcase outtake. The rest only manage to add to Pollard’s post-GBV resume as material that meets a lowered expectation rather than provide examples of exemplary performance. There’s barely a note out of place, and even fewer melodies that challenge either the listener or the artist himself. Yes, Normal Happiness is the first record where Robert Pollard truly sounds his age.

Recorded with Todd Tobias, the production is a nowhere near his former lo-fi glories which is unfortunate as the additional hiss might have added some nuances and, at the very least, hidden some of the album’s shortcomings. The instrumentation is given an adequate amount of detail for listeners to hear both the lack of passion and excitement behind it.

The tracks that do manage to make an impact (“Supernatural Car Lover,” “Serious Bird Woman,” “Towers And Landslides,” and “Rhoda Rhoda”) are, you guessed it, straight out of the GBV playbook, while a few tracks (“Give Up The Grape” and “Gasoline Ragtime”) actually make a half-assed attempt at trying to demonstrate musical diversity before succumbing to the blatant realization that there really wasn’t a tangible inspiration that prompted him to examine different sonic colors in the first place. Or as Robert puts it in “Gasoline Ragtime:” “Act like we lost it, baby/Just need something to remind us/Just need to find it somehow/That you must grow to get there.” And on several of the tracks, Pollard’s definition of “growth” is to simply add a few synthesizers and call it progression.

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh; there’s nothing on Normal Happiness that stands out as unlistenable or bad. The problem is that it doesn’t stand out at all. And if we’re going to place Pollard on a level where he’s afforded the luxury to release several albums a year based on past accomplishments, then he should return the favor by at least hinting as to why he’s granted that luxury to begin with.

This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise.