As reunions go, the second coming of Guided by Voices was a remarkably generous affair. Between 2010 and 2014, the band’s beloved "classic" lineup from the early '90s—the guys responsible for GBV’s best records (Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, etc.)—returned to release six records, including three in 2012 alone, and play for thousands of enthralled faithful. The albums were only intermittently successful, but it was still a thrill to see Robert Pollard—the band’s ageless, indefatigable leader, its one constant across decades of lineup changes—scissor-kick his way across the country, a bottle of Jose Cuervo tucked under his arm, while his old buddies wailed away behind him.
Now Guided by Voices are back again—or at least the name is. You see, for Please Be Honest (GBV’s 23rd LP), Bob Pollard wrote every track and played every instrument himself. There is no Tobin Sprout, Pollard’s songwriting partner from the classic lineup; no Doug Gillard, Pollard’s guitar-shredding sidekick from the TVT and Matador years; not even Todd Tobias, Pollard’s near constant companion on his endless side projects and solo records. This time the Fading Captain rides alone.
And the results are a decidedly mixed bag. With its slapdash, lo-fi production and jarring transitions from ballad to rocker to quirky one-off, *Please Be Honest is a close sonic relative of GBV’s post-2010 discography, Let’s Go Eat the Factory *in particular. But this new Pollard-only GBV has less of the easygoing melodicism and sense of goofy fun that kept those records fresh, even at their most awkward moments.
Of course, this being Guided by Voices, there are still gems to be found. The stately opener "My Zodiac Companion" features one of the more anthemic Pollard choruses in recent memory. The breezy drum-machine jangle of "Kid on a Ladder" could fit on *Alien Lanes, *nestled somewhere between "Game of Pricks" and "My Valuable Hunting Knife." The title track serves up the record’s finest melody, sung in Pollard’s bittersweet higher register over nerve-damaged electric guitar. Refreshingly, the song touches on a real-world subject (Pollard’s attempt to get someone to level with him) rather than the usual carnival of GBV absurdities—the "cucumber guns," "shriveled artichokes," and "glittering parliaments"—that populate the rest of the album.
Despite its myriad eccentricities, aural and otherwise, GBV is at its core a power-pop band. But great hooks are frustratingly scarce on Please Be Honest, particularly on grinding, midtempo dirges like "The Grasshopper Eaters," "The Quickers Arrive," and "Nightmare Jamboree." One really misses Sprout’s songwriting—his emotional candor and vivid harmonies would have helped to brighten what is often a dark, brittle record. And while musicianship is never the point with GBV, many of these tunes, like the lurching, proggy "Hotel X (Big Soap)," would have benefited from a bit more finesse. Too many of the drum and guitar tracks sound like they’re being played with a hammer.
Ultimately, however, the biggest problem with *Please Be Honest *is existential: The fact that it’s a Guided by Voices record at all seems entirely arbitrary. It could just as easily have been a Pollard solo album or a new record from Teenage Guitar (Bob’s other solo project) or the debut album from some other dreamed-up band (like, say, Kitchen Winners, Jet Logic, or the Easy Cyclists). Pollard seems simply to have finished a new batch of songs and decided they sounded like a Guided by Voices record—a strikingly anti-climatic backstory for the return of such a legendary act. Without a solid band identity and the sense of mission it provides, this new GBV comes off like little more than a side project, like just another star in the greater constellation of Bob (and not even the brightest one, considering the quality of Pollard’s recent Ricked Wicky records with guitarist Nick Mitchell). Please Be Honest certainly has its charms. But for the first time in Pollard’s career, Guided by Voices isn’t the main event—which, for the band’s legions of fans, is surely a loss.
