Guided By Voices

Inspired equally by jangle pop and arty post-punk, Guided by Voices created a series of trebly, hissy indie rock records filled with infectiously brief pop songs that fell somewhere between the British Invasion and prog rock.

After a fifteen year hiatus, the “classic line up” of Guided By Voices (Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Greg Demos, and Kevin Fennell) finished off its year-long reunion tour 2011 by releasing an album of 21 new songs, deliberately choosing to return to what bandleader Robert Pollard calls the “semi-collegial” approach of iconic GBV albums like ‘Bee Thousand’ and ‘Alien Lanes’. ‘Let’s Go Eat The Factory’, the first album of new material in fifteen years, was much more than a mere return, however: sprawling, variegated, heavy, melodic, and yet still recognizably and coherently Guided By Voices in both its literal and mythic senses.

This was followed by the astonishing ‘Class Clown Spots a UFO’ and if that wasn’t enough, the third record of a year, ‘The Bears For Lunch’ hit stores in November 2012. ‘English Little League’ was their next release, and this was followed by yet another ‘Motivational Jumpsuit’, which came out in February 2014. Add in ‘Cool Planet’ which came out in May 2014 and you’ll realise that this has been a pretty productive couple of years for the band.

‘Let’s Go Eat The Factory’, ‘Class Clown Spots A UFO’, ‘The Bears For Lunch’, ‘English Little League’, ‘Motivational Jumpsuit’ and ‘Cool Planet’ are available from Fire Records on CD, LP and Digital download.