Guided by Voices - Sandbox - VINYL LP

Tremblers And Goggles By Rank marks a new phase in Robert Pollard's songwriting evolution. His songs have always included non-traditional approaches to form and song structure, but with this album, he has pushed it further than ever. While the familiar Guided by Voices pop-craft and melodic virtuosity always occupies center stage, the first-time listener will never be able to predict what's coming next in a song. InchAlex BellInch and InchFocus On The FlockInch are the two anchors, each one expansive and filled with rock grandeur, and both exemplifying the complex wordplay, melodies, and structures that are hallmarks of the album. GBV's latest batch of brilliant songs ride on colorful psychedelic flourishes and brash post-punk textures that make this ten-song album a one-of-a-kind head trip. While there are hooks and earworms aplenty within, this album is a complex and kaleidoscopic journey, representing a new echelon in the Guided by Voices universe. It represents another level of songwriting and performance from the group. It plays out like an intricate and powerful collage, in a very multicolored and multi-faceted fashion; a work grand in scale and undertaking. There are triumphant and glorious choruses, deep and dark wormholes, sinewy twists and turns, bold and theatrical bravados, massive cliffs, plateaus, peaks, and valleys-these emotional landscapes reach new and unexpected heights along the way.

Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia was Guided by Voices' third album, self-released by the band in 1988 in a pressing of 500. While both of the band's earlier albums exhibit strong songwriting and plenty of vision, it is here that the GBV sound really begins to coalesce. While Devil Between My Toes is rife with contrasts, variety, and dark psychedelia, and it's follow up Sandbox is a cohesive '60s-influenced affair, Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia marries the two approaches to outstanding effect. Unsurprisingly, recording began before Sandbox was even done pressing. These sessions would yield an aborted LP titled Learning To Hunt, but after personnel changes and second thoughts, Robert Pollard shelved most of the tracks, dismissing them as too similar to those on Sandbox. Fair enough, as many of Pollard's more recent songs were simply on another level than previously. Here are the first of the classic Pollard slow-burners, often built on a simple melodic or rhythmic figure that circles itself ever outward, accumulating heft, variation, and inevitability as the song evolves into something unexpected yet inevitable. It's the aural equivalent to watching a butterfly grow out of it's cocoon.A few things are unique to this particular LP. Original powerhouse drummer Peyton Eric returns for nearly half the tracks, while engineer and lead guitarist Steve Wilbur shines at his brightest, resulting in some of the most thoroughly rocking GBV songs to ever be cut to lacquer, such as InchEarful o' Wax,Inch which simply explodes out of the speakers when the solo section begins. On the other end of the spectrum, you get Pollard recording perfect pop gems at home with just voice and guitar, which would become a calling card on later GBV albums. There's simply a tremendous variety of material, all strung together in such a way that the album is all of one piece, a mosaic.

The mighty Guided By Voices are set to unleash upon the world their 35th and quite possibly... best album, Crystal Nuns Cathedral. How do they do it you might ask? Well we have no idea how they do it, but we certainly do know why they do it. They do it because quite honestly we need them to do it. The world needs The Rock, and we need loud guitars, we need anthemic songs, we need a reason to raise a rock fist in the air and give a InchHell YeahInch! On Crystal Nuns Cathedral, the band delivers all of this and so much more. Just four months since It's Not Them. It Couldn't Be Them. It Is Them!, comes this latest, twelve songs determined to challenge for the title of greatest Guided by Voices album of all-time. Hyperbole you say? Not this time. The guitars are bigger, the arrangements are more ambitious, the songs are uplifting, epic, and as incredibly hook-laden as always! Pure power pop perfection like lead single InchExcited OnesInch mix perfectly with the slow burning InchClimbing A Ramp,Inch which reaches it's climax on a stunning guitar lead before dissolving into the fist pumping anthem InchNever Mind the List,Inch which serves as the beating heart of the entire album. Do you still need convincing? Listen to the one-two punch of InchForced to SeaInch and InchHuddledInch and marvel at the epic scope and vision of an incredible band on full display. This record is a statement, a challenge, a monument, a call to arms. Top this one if you can, this is the new benchmark. Who will best it? Who will try? Listen to Crystal Nuns Cathedral, and report back to us. We will be eagerly waiting.