Guided By Voices - Alien Lanes

Matador

4/4/95

Alien Lanes is Guided By Voices' eighth full length album. It features the most notable and prominent line-up that GBV put together over the years - it was a particularly fertile period for the band. 

GBV had a lot to live up to after Bee Thousand, which was released ten months prior in June of '94. The spheres of Lo-Fi Indie that Bee Thousand perfected would find themselves traversed once more. If it's not broken, you know what to do. Pop pumped through a rugged set of aesthetical values, the feel of the material is conduited cleanly across as opposed to the sound of said material - that's not to say that the sound is of no value, it's worth reveals itself in time. The rough charm that purposeful neglect and seeming unsophistication brings cannot be understood, nor does it require understanding. Things are what they are and do what they do. 

Pollard's unequivocal pengame once again makes its way to the forefront of GBV's output. The idiosyncratic way to which he links words and abstract thoughts is second to none. A sense of 'something is not quite right' emanates. The truth, yeah, it's just a lie.  

With 28 tracks - 41 minutes in total - and 22 tracks remaining under two minutes in length, Alien Lanes is a gorgeous stew of ephemeralities. It's here and then it's not. The closer you are, the quicker it hits ya.