Of the notorious Fading Captain series of Guided By Voices-related material, Circus Devils remain the most obtuse of Robert Pollard's side projects. That's likely because Pollard isn't primary songwriter, his vocals instead added to music created by extended GBV-family member Todd Tobias.
With Guided By Voices dissolved and Pollard's next solo album, From A Compound Eye, in release-date limbo, fans may feel the urge to scramble for this record to tide them over to a more official Pollard release. Guys, girls, Postal Blowfishes, and fanatics: Take a pass on this one.
Part of the Circus Devils' appeal is just how far it sounds from Guided By Voices. Good or bad, it's a whole new context for Pollard's musings, and that's certainly true of Five. Where previous releases saw them balancing eerie psychedelia with more traditional rock songs, Five opens with string-imitating keyboards, setting the tone for a distinctly non-rock record. Expect a lot of beat-poet Bob without any of the breaks into standard rock songs that previous Devils albums provided. The early tracks are the most bewildering, with disorienting loops of noise and ambient keyboards, through which snippets of soft rock float in and out while Pollard does his best to sound like someone else. He sings with a deep and strangely affected voice over the jaw harp percussion and synth bass of "Look Between the Eyes" and the mush-mouthed "Atheroid Vogue".
Despite his lyricist-only role, Pollard wedges his personality into the later tracks. There's some oddball charm in the lumbering fuzzbox groove of "Animal Motel", and "We Taught Them Rock and Roll" is the apes learning from the monolith in 2001, but with beginner guitar riffs coming out of a shitty practice amp instead of a monolith (there's still plenty of Chewbacca-like animal screams). Elsewhere, the sluggish ambience of "Tell Them the Old Man is Coming Down" or "Dolphins of Color" recall the strained, world-weary introspection of GBV's major-label days.
But much of the thrill of the Fading Captain series is sifting for those unexpected nuggets of gold. Compile them all for the Ultimate Pollard/GBV Mix, and it'll unlock the gates to Paradise and push you right through, past a St. Peter who's shotgunning a beer and throwing up the horns. Let me get you there that much faster: None of those songs are on Five. There aren't pleasant any surprises here along the lines of Harold Pig Memorial's "Bull Spears". What is here is a lot of work-- 23 tracks to get through without any familiar footholds.
If you haven't read it a dozen times before, here or elsewhere, there's just a shit-ton of music with Pollard's name on it. It's intimidating and exhausting to follow, and even compared to the other Circus Devils efforts, Five is lacking. Maybe a hardcore fan will find more to love than I did, but for the uninitiated, start anywhere but here.
