Writing about Guided By Voices one should dispense with superlatives, sidestep attempts to elucidate the appeal of yet another oddly named band most readers have never heard of, and simply recommend immediate investment in their latest release. Earthquake Glue is the 47th album Robert Pollard has released since 1980, Guided By Voices being the most common of his many aliases. Pollard abandoned his job teaching Ohio schoolchildren in the mid-1990s, when he was already well over the age limit of the standard indie rock icon, and made his cult cottage industry into a full-time concern. An invisible cloud of transcendental 1960s guitar-pop hooks vibrates permanently around Pollard’s shrivelled head and rubs off on his revolving roster of hired guns. GBV surmount self-imposed obstacles like primitive recording techniques, too much treble, ill-advised experimental interludes and spectacularly meaningless lyrics to shake the hand of genius. Earthquake Glue’s opening track, My Kind of Soldier, will make you very happy, instantly; She Goes Off at Night’s psychedelic mod-punk confection consigns all Britpop bands to the dustbin of history; and The Best of Jill Hives could fill a stadium, but probably never will, unless you come out of your consumer coma and get yourself to your nearest record shop now.

Matador

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