An avalanche of records from Robert Pollard's projects-- the stellar Boston Spaceships, the extra skronky Circus Devils, a few one-offs and curios, and several records under his given name-- isn't a new thing. But the clip at which they've arrived lately seems almost superhuman. And while he's not immune to the occasional failure, since late 2008 or so Pollard has enjoyed a late-career renaissance, consistently rewarding those of us still paying attention.
Messy though the sonics can be, there is something very deliberate about the construction of Pollard's recent work; even last summer's haywire Elephant Jokes felt like an attempt to capture the clipped construction of his muddy mid-90s masterpieces. We All Got Out of the Army, his first solo album of 2010, is a gleaming and hefty glam-pop record without the rough patches and rushed moments and that can bog him down, and it's among his most deliberate yet.
"Silk Rotor" starts the album with an amicable enough guitar chug before exploding into a weighty stomp; after a string of fine LPs with less than stellar first tracks, it feels good to dive right into this one. "Post-Hydrate Update" lopes around into a nice series of hooks, and the thwacky "Your Rate Will Never Go Up" is similarly catchy. "On Top of the Vertigo" is one of Bob's best vocal performances in years, the gnarly track thrashing against an aside-laden tale of "sleeping in a puddle of puke." "How Many Stations" is a true lighters-in-the-air moment, while the manic title track might well inspire a mosh pit should this new studio rat incarnation of Pollard tour again. And "Wild Girl", a stripped-bare piece of melancholia that suggests Syd Barrett doing "Across the Universe", might just be the best tune here.
A fine lot of Pollard songs is one thing, but it's gotta sound right, and right-hand-man Todd Tobias, working from his new studio, lends these numbers just the right amount of flash and grit. Unlike last year's The Crawling Distance, which found Tobias dressing up a drab grab-bag of Pollard tunes in the most utilitarian arrangements imaginable, the music here works against the songs beautifully. It's fuller, brighter, more nuanced, and more natural, closer to the much-loved Isolation Drills than almost anything else that's come since. And Pollard actually straps on a guitar and lets a few solos fly, a show of effort and personal involvement practically unheard of in the period immediately following Guided by Voices' split. Pollard's a loopy guitar player, favoring feel over form, but his personal touch helps to offset Tobias' steady hand.
It wouldn't be a Pollard record without inspiring a raised eyebrow or two. The not quite right "Rice Train" is a little too weird to be wonderful, and "Talking Dogs" feels slight, as befits the set's shortest number. A few tunes, while not exactly sleepwalkers, seem driven by autopilot. Most egregiously, "I Can See" nicks the central riff from Pollard's best and most recognizable song, Bee Thousand's "I Am a Scientist", pretty much wholesale; it'd be a lousy trick if the tune that followed weren't pretty good, although, of course, "Scientist" it ain't. But if we're getting to a point where the worst thing you can say about a Bob Pollard record is that it's got a tune that reminds you of his best work, well, clearly we're getting somewhere. Last year was a good one for Pollard, and with a record like We All Got Out of the Army coming right out of the gate, 2010 is shaping up nicely.
