When Robert Pollard disbanded GBV, but announced he still intended to record, the big question was: "...then why bother?" Pollard was the obvious creative center of the group, to the point that, particularly in the later years, many considered GBV little more than a revolving door (which isn't very fair to guitarist Doug Gillard, among many others). What would be the point of continuing under his own name? Another EP from Pollard is hard to get excited about considering the deluge around it, but it's a good time to stop and address that earlier question of why. Having released a good chunk of material in the two years since disbanding GBV (you expected anything less?) with collaborative partner Todd Tobias as producer, we're finally getting an answer-- and you might not like it.
The uncertain sound of the "record" button being pressed couldn't be more comforting at the top of opener "Come Outside", and the string section that follows couldn't sound simpler or sweeter. A promising, wordless start, but these interludes are bookends on mostly predictable material. While the final moments "Circle Saw Boys Club" has an unexpected escalation into grandeur, and "Touched to Be Sure" features the disc's most memorable melody, both tracks are ponderous, sluggish, and smothered in easy-atmosphere background synthesizers.
Fortunately, the whole of the EP is much more diverse, with the aforementioned bookends and interludes that push Pollard out of his comfort zone. There's the warm organ drone of "Wickerman Smile" and the instrumental "Waves, Etc.", with keyboards that'd be comfortable on an Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack or (more likely) a Circus Devils album. And then there's the eight-minute "Cats Love a Parade", which follows much the same pattern as "Boys Club" or "Touched", before taking a left turn into a near-industrial lurch halfway through, while Pollard adopts a husky, creepy tone and repeats the song's strange chorus at length. These three songs together suggest similar tones to Pollard's recent Merge albums, but with higher compositional ambition that approaches his traditional DIY stadium-rock from another angle.
The variety represented here isn't just reassuring, it's badly needed. And while it's not surprising that the Pollard/Tobias partnership might return to the well and draw inspiration from their material together as the Circus Devils, to take their more synth-oriented work and add a dash of Pollard's everyman guitar strums and his newly acquired sensitive bleat to create flowery adult-contempo pap-- this isn't a road I want to follow him down. Perhaps he'll continue to stretch his compositions, but if the choice is between "Circle Saw Boys Club" or the strange ambitions of "Cats Love a Parade", I choose door number three.
