It's surprising what a difference it makes when a musician knows someone will actually be hearing his work. After 1994's charmingly sloppy
Bee Thousand
gained
Guided By Voices
a nationwide cult following (instead of the local cult following they were accustomed to), 1995's
Alien Lanes
found
Robert Pollard
and his partners in hard pop cleaning up their act a bit. For the most part,
isn't radically different from
-- it was primarily recorded on a four-track cassette machine (and sounds like it), and
was still a garage band with more in the way of inspiration than chops. But the musicians have put a bit more care and focus into their performance on this set; the playing is tighter and sharper, and the band plays toward their strengths, pushing their occasional sloppiness into a harder, more rock-oriented direction. And if
Pollard
and
Tobin Sprout
were still obsessed with tiny fragments of pop song wonderment, they also rounded up a more consistent collection of them; there aren't quite as many obvious masterpieces as on
, but also fewer obvious mistakes, and the sequencing gives the album a more consistent flow than before.
also made genuine inroads into more lyrically cognizant material (though don't fret,
"Auditorium"
"Blimps Go 90"
are as cryptic as ever), and
"Watch Me Jumpstart,"
"Striped White Jets,"
"Motor Away"
are simply superb pop/rock songs. (
Sprout
also gets a few shining moments on
"A Good Flying Bird"
"Straw Dogs."
) Both
sound like they were made by a band of inspired amateurs with great ideas; the difference is that
suggests that
wanted to prove that they could turn pro some day. ~ Mark Deming