Universe Room

On their many, many albums, Guided by Voices have taken various different inroads to rock & roll over the years. During their lo-fi beginnings, the band often looked to Beatles-inspired melody and post-punk weirdness, and on the nonstop stream of output thats poured out since their 2012 reunion, they have ventured into dense prog rock or more conceptual songwriting. Universe Room, the groups 41st studio album, lands somewhere different not just song by song, but minute by minute. Bandleader Bob Pollard designed the record to not have too many repeating parts, traditional choruses, or typical arrangement choices. This approach sets up an album of curveballs, where listener expectations are unwound at every turn. "Fly Religion" starts out with a chunky, pulsating riff played by the entire band, suggesting classic hard rock tension-building that will eventually erupt into a big chorus that brings the song resolution. Instead, the track touches briefly on some alt-rock segments, winds through dissonance, and eventually dissolves into a cloud of meandering guitar noodling. "Independent Animal" kicks off like a classic GbV melancholic power pop tune, but instead of delivering the usual verse/chorus/verse, the song changes keys several times within its verse, gets into an intricate instrumental section, and then simply stops, all of this happening in just over one minute. "Aesop Dreamed of Lions" reaches out in every direction, with yearning melodic verses transitioning into segments of sauntering rock, uplifting orchestral moments complete with strings and sleigh bells, and some flashy guitar leads to tie everything up as nicely as possible. One minute GbV are tearing through their time-honored bar-band-from-Jupiter-styled rock tunes, and then they abruptly turn to flamenco guitars and Morricone-informed percussion flourishes. Universe Room approaches production in the same unpredictable manner as the songwriting. Alongside huge-sounding studio recordings are more low-fidelity tunes like the exceptionally scrappy instrumental "The Well Known Soldier," which records a broken acoustic guitar on what sounds like a handheld cassette recorder. "Clearly Aware" is a loud rocker, but it captures the entire band with a single microphone, creating a mix where the sounds bleed together into one bulky singular force. The multiple shifts arent dissimilar to the experimentation found on early Guided by Voices albums. It results in a wildly mixed bag where the listener has to actively engage to keep up, and the constant unexpected gear shifting makes for one of the more fun and happily confounding GbV sets of their post-reunion output. ~ Fred Thomas

解散～再結成を挿んで40年近いキャリアを誇るUSインディー・ロックの重要バンド。この41作目でも彼ららしいローファイなロックを奏でつつ、ミステリアスな"The Great Man"やフラメンコ・ギターが鳴る"Fran Cisco"のような新味を感じさせる曲もチラホラ。ロバート・ポラードが〈音の多様性を出したかった〉と語るように、ヴァラエティ豊かな音楽性が楽しめる作品だ。
bounce (C)赤瀧洋二