This is the best Guided By Voices album since Under the Bushes. Or at least the best Kleenex Girl Wonder album since Ponyoak. My only complaint is that there are too many good songs to use my credits on, so I'll have to wait for it to show up in the Amoeba bargain bin (as all Rainbow Quartz releases eventually do).
I only discovered this band a few months ago but they quickly became one of my favorites. If somebody created a hooks/second measurement for music this band would be off the charts. This album is cleaner than the others (for some reason those albums are currently listed separately on Emusic) and I kind of miss the raw sound, but it is still excellent. Download everything you can find by this band.
If you've ever heard the Capstan Shafts, you know you can expect short, catchy pop rock with jangley guitars and Well's faithfully carrying on the GBV torch where Robert Pollard left off. Any band will inevitably grow stagnant with one sound though so for this newest release, the band (now 4 piece + songwriter Dean Wells) heads to the studio instead of the 4 track. The result is a much cleaner, more polished Capstan Shafts which may catch longtime fans off guard at first. Underneath though, songs are still just as short, witty and catchy as ever, only now Wells sounds as if he's singing in a bar rather than a bedroom.
