When Guided by Voices were a part-time basement project in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Robert Pollard became the master of compact pop gems, songs that ran less than two minutes and were full of delightfully skewed melodies and hummable hooks. Of course, when youre recording on a cheap four-track cassette machine, your production and arrangement options are limited, to say the least, so to a certain extent, form helped define content. Since GbV unveiled the lineup here with 2017s August by Cake, Pollard has subtly but confidently embraced the possibilities of the recording studio, and his songwriting has evolved as well; he clearly has no desire to pen a rock opera or stretch his songs out to ten minutes or more, but his love of prog-rock, often faintly audible in the 1990s and 2000s, has moved closer to the forefront, and 2024s Strut of Kings is the work of Pollard in High Prog Mode, with stately melodies, big guitars, arrangements that make the most of dynamics, and drumming that milks the drama for all its worth. The songs are clearly Guided by Voices, with Pollards trademark melodic structures audible throughout, and "Dear Onion," "Fictional Environment Dream," and "Timing Voice" are GbV in the classic style -- smart and hooky without too much fuss about it. However, the acoustic moodiness of "This Will Go On" and "Bit of a Crunch," the midtempo pomp of "Leaving Umbrella," the glam-infused swagger of "Cavemen Running Naked," and the anthemic "Bicycle Garden" are the work of a more ambitious Guided by Voices than the band that cut Alien Lanes (or, for that matter, Isolation Drills). Just as Pollard is more than up to challenging himself as a songwriter, his band has the skill and imagination to make all of it work, and guitarists Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare Jr., bassist Mark Shue, and drummer Kevin March continue to prove themselves as this bands most adept and adaptable lineup to date. As Guided by Voices approach their fourth decade as a band, Strut of Kings reminds us that theyre not only at the top of their game, but theyre still growing and trying new things, and succeeding admirably. Theyre a truly great band going the distance, and who would have guessed that from their beer-and-four-tracks beginnings? ~ Mark Deming

Rovi