We All Got Out of the Army

Personnel: Robert Pollard (vocals, guitar); Todd Tobias (guitar, keyboards, drums).
Recording information: Waterloo Sound, Brecksville, OH.
Photographer: Carol Pollard.
If you like your power pop delivered in brief, crunchy, punky, quirkily hooky blasts, and if you've therefore been following the career of the jaw-droppingly prolific Robert Pollard (Guided by Voices, Boston Spaceships, Circus Devils, Cosmos), then you already know that you need to own this, the tenth album released on his Guided by Voices, Inc. label since its inception in 2008. It features 17 tracks and a total program length of about 38 minutes, which means that the average track length is just over two minutes. With a voice somewhere between David Bowie and Matthew Sweet, and the same apparently tortured relationship to punk rock that Elvis Costello had to Memphis soul, Pollard turns in an album that sounds something like a post-punk version of Get Happy!, which is actually high praise: he opens the album with the blissfully blistering "Silk Rotor," a power pop Master's thesis that will make every hair on your head stand up. "Your Rate Will Never Go Up" manages to make a 6/8 rhythm compelling, "Post-Hydrate Update" sounds like the Beatles on crank, "Rice Train" is charmingly awkward (while "Wild Girl," a crappy-sounding acoustic demo, is less charmingly so), and "Talking Dogs" is splay-footed and gawky, yet wonderful for all that. There are moments that feel a bit contrived in their weirdness, but even they feel like an integral part of what turns out to be a goofily brilliant whole. ~ Rick Anderson