Starting Point of the Royal Cyclopean

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 00:42:47
Audio Mixers: Nick Mitchell ; Travis Harrison. Recording information: Any Road Studio, Dayton, OH (03/2016); Serious Business Music, Brooklyn (03/2016). Robert Pollard has been a not-so-secret prog rock fan for quite some time. The fun-sized tunes he churns out for Guided by Voices are dominated by plenty of pop hooks and an abundance of British Invasion-era energy. But the melodic twists and turns of his music and the oblique storytelling of his lyrics frequently betray his fondness for the grander musical landscapes of prog. Pollard has seemingly chosen to put his inclinations toward prog up front on his first album with his new side project, ESP Ohio. Cramming 16 songs into 45 minutes, Starting Point of the Royal Cyclopean is hardly constructed on the epic scale of Tales of Topographic Oceans or The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but the title gives a clue to the over-the-top lyrical conceits of many of these songs. Even by the impressionistic standards of Pollard's work, much of Starting Point of the Royal Cyclopean seems oblique, though the force of his vocals gives this material enough drama that it succeeds even when it's hard to tell what he's going on about. And Pollard's co-star in ESP Ohio more than holds up his end. Doug Gillard, who played with Guided by Voices from 1997 to 2004 as well as making great music with Death of Samantha, Cobra Verde, and Nada Surf, is Pollard's prime collaborator in ESP Ohio, and he's just the right sort of guitar hero for this band. Gillard brings an ideal fusion of hard rock crunch, arty melodicism, and palpable rock & roll passion to these performances; he never overplays, but his technical skills are outstanding, while his musical instincts for these songs are the ideal complement for Pollard's grand-scale ambitions. Toss in the excellent rhythm section of bassist Mark Shue and drummer Travis Harrison and you have one of the more imaginative and well-executed creative detours Pollard has delivered in a while. On Starting Point of the Royal Cyclopean, Pollard shows he can have his art rock and eat it too, thanks in large part to Gillard's superior moves as the band's musical point man. ~ Mark Deming