Artist – Album: Guided By Voices – Alien Lanes
Released: 4th
April 1995
Sounds Like: "the
cost for recording, if you leave out the beer, was about ten dollars"
Anyone, ANYONE, with a serious inclination towards indie
music needs to know and love Guided By Voices. They are the absolute embodiment
of lo-fi indie cool and have an unsurpassed ability to meld crunching guitars
and chaotic production to wonderfully poppy melodies.
Whether Alien Lanes - their first full length album at
Matador but one which still sounds like it was recorded in the bedroom - is the
album with which to make that first step is debatable. Some fans and critics
have a greater affinity and love for the earlier Bee Thousand, whilst the
greatest hits album Human Amusements at Hourly Rates would make a wonderful, if
obvious, starting point. There’s little argument though that this album still
stands as one of their best, and, if it does become the means of your
introduction into Robert Pollard’s world, you will not be disappointed.
Kicking off with ‘A Salty Salute’, GbV proceed to
blast their way through 28 tiny morsels of DIY rock in just over 40 minutes. Scattered
along the way are some of the finest snippets they’ve ever recorded, including ‘Watch Me Jumpstart’, ‘As We Go Up, We Go
Down’, ‘Game of Pricks’, ‘Closer You Are’, ‘My Valuable Hunting Knife’ and ‘Blimps Go 90’. God knows what most of
these songs mean but the sound and feel of them are magnificent.
The whole lo-fi substrata of indie rock can be difficult to
follow, as trends change and even the best bands remain relatively low key. Allow
yourself to be guided by Guided by Voices.
Albumaday... rating:
8/10
1. A
Salty Salute – 1:29
2. Evil
Speakers – 0:58
3. Watch
Me Jumpstart – 2:24
4. They’re
Not Witches – 0:51
5. As
We Go Up, We Go Down – 1:37
6. (I
Wanna Be a) Dumbcharger – 1:13
7. Game
of Pricks – 1:33
8. The
Ugly Vision – 1:34
9. A
Good Flying Bird – 1:07
10. Cigarette
Tricks – 0:18
11. Pimple
Zoo – 0:42
12. Big
Chief Chinese Restaurant – 0:56
13. Closer
You Are – 1:56
14. Auditorium
– 1:02
15. Motor
Away – 2:06
16. Hit
– 0:23
17. My
Valuable Hunting Knife – 2:00
18. Gold
Hick – 0:30
19. King
and Caroline – 1:36
20. Striped
White Jets – 2:15
21. Ex-Supermodel
– 1:06
22. Blimps
Go 90 – 1:40
23. Strawdogs
– 1:17
24. Chicken
Blows – 2:21
25. Little
Whirl – 1:46
26. My
Soon Cool – 1:41
27. Always
Crush Me – 1:44
28. Alright
– 2:56
Listen to ‘Game of
Pricks’:
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