Album Of The Week: Guided By Voices Let’s Go Eat The Factory

An important thing to remember about the Guided By Voices reunion: They were the weird old guys in the club the first time around, too. Back in the day, the music press had an easy time lumping them in with the then-ascendant wave of lo-fi indie rock wiseacres: Pavement, Sebadoh, Smog, about a million others. And there were similarities, certainly: slapdash recording techniques, lyrical obtuseness, general lack of fashion sense. But they were also old enough to remember the Camaro-rock anthems of the 70s and drunk enough to attempt their own versions of those songs. Robert Pollard was the only one of his peers who sang in anything like a fake British accent, and his records tended to pile on the big juicy Cheap Tricked-out hooks. They tended to come off less like new-era art-school travelers and more like dudes who were rocking as hard as they could with whatever meager resources they had at their disposal. When they recorded Isolation Drills, making the leap to a bigger label and an actual professional producer, it didn't feel as forced as we might've expected. And maybe that's why they're able to get together without missing a step; they're still those same old guys rocking as hard as they possibly can.