Thick Rich And Delicious

キング・オブ・パワーポップ Robert Pollard率いるGuided By Voicesのニューアルバム登場!本作は、ブルックリンのスタジオでライブ演奏をそのまま録音し、オーバーダブも最小限に抑えることで、爆音で演奏された伝説のライブの迫力とエネルギーを余すところなく再現。Pollardのリードボーカルに加え、グラミー候補Bobby Bare JrやPollard自身(The Self-Righteous Bros)がハーモニーを担当しています。新曲とバンド初期の未発表曲を組み合わせ、長年温められたフックも随所に登場。厚みのある豊かなサウンドが詰まった、フック満載の必聴パワーポップアルバム!

Some of the most revered Guided by Voices albums are the ones where songwriter Robert Pollard is able to balance his proclivities for strangeness with his gifts for melody and hooks. The reconfiguration of GbV thats been responsible for record after record (usually at least two a year) in the 2010s and 2020s has often leaned more toward the strange side of things, with a high number of the many tunes they churn out exploring prog rock or experimental song structures. Thick Rich and Delicious, the bands second full-length of 2025, is the album GbV fans who miss the bands more tuneful, pop-friendly days have been waiting for. These 15 songs are primarily energetic power pop, rich with catchy melodies, high-spirited vocal harmonies, and the type of sticky choruses Pollard has used sparingly on the albums directly preceding this. Songs like "A Tribute to Beatle Bob" or "Lucys World" are almost too straightforwardly melodic, with huge, happy major-key chord progressions and hummable tunes. The band rocks out on riffy selections like the instrumental "Ozark Ivanho" and the garage punk of "Replay," and theres some woozy Who-like experimentalism on "Mother John," but by and large, Thick Rich and Delicious is all about pop. Its powerful power pop, too, with the band tracking the entire album live, with cranked amps direct to analog tape. The nostalgic effect of a Guided by Voices record this melodic seems not to be lost on the band. "The Lighthouse Resurrection" contains a callback to 90s GbV tune "At Odds with Dr. Genius," a lyric or two of which made it into an interlude on the bands widely celebrated 1994 album Bee Thousand. Thick Rich and Delicious doesnt aspire to return to any of Pollard or the bands former selves, but its a fantastic reminder of the side of GbV thats been underrepresented on some of their 2010s/2020s records: their ability to make fun, rambunctious rockers that are easy to sing along to. ~ Fred Thomas