Guided By Voices: Let’s Go Eat The Factory

Music writers keep referring to the current Guided By Voices reboot as the “classic” lineup, almost always with that word “classic” in quotation marks, like they need to remind us that “classic” is just publicist-speak.  I prefer to distance myself from that “classic” label as well, if only because “classic” feels like such a mundane way to put it.  “Classic” is for blue jeans and Coca Cola and Treasure Island and radio stations that play “Whole Lotta Love.”  Not that those things can’t be cool, but the 1993 – 1996 lineup of Guided By Voices is a peculiar animal, and therefore it needs its own adjective.  I think John Wenzel is on the right track when he talks about GBV’s 1994 album Bee Thousand:

It is perfect, in the same subjective and tautological way that all great works of art are perfect.  Its quality cannot be overstated, but it can certainly be overanalyzed, and that I usually try to avoid.  Let its mystery lie, like the alien corpses rumored to exist in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s Hangar 18.  Perhaps that’s where the album’s magic came from, some toxic alien blood infiltrating the water table of Northridge, somehow birthing a modern classic in the mind of a beer-fueled ex-jock schoolteacher.

from Marc Woodworth’s 33¹ ⁄ ³ book on Bee Thousand

John can’t avoid using that “classic” word near the end, but the “toxic alien blood” phrase is what I’m talking about.  From here on, I’ll refer to the recently reunited version of Guided By Voices as the “Toxic Alien Blood” lineup (that’s lead singer/songwriter Robert Pollard; assistant captain Tobin Sprout on guitar, piano, and occasional lead vocals; guitarist Mitch Mitchell; bassist Greg Demos; and drummer Kevin Fennell).

The Toxic Alien Blood lineup of Guided By Voices must have known they were lofting their fans’ expectations when they announced they wouldn’t just go on tour playing their mid-’90s highlights, but that they were also going to release a new album of original material.  The pre-’93 and post-’96 lineups released some good albums and scores of great songs, thanks to Pollard’s gifts as a songwriter and talent scout.  Any of those lineups- perhaps even a fresh new lineup- could have re-established the Guided By Voices brand and generated buzz, as long as Pollard was involved.  Getting the Toxic Alien Blood band back together, however, seemed to offer an implicit promise that they were feeling the same kind of alchemy that forged Bee Thousand and 1995’s Alien Lanes, and to a lesser extent, 1996’s Under The Bushes, Under The Stars.  As if the Toxic Alien Blood hadn’t totally evaporated, and the band had found some traces left in a vial in Robert Pollard’s cellar, and they were able to synthesize a few more pints.

Let’s Go Eat The Factory is the result of this promise, and it doesn’t disappoint.  Yes, it’s a blatant attempt to recapture the Toxic Alien Blood magic of days long past.  But it never sounds desperate, sad, or stale.  Sure, there’s plenty of what we might expect from these guys.  We get songs with melodies so gorgeous and voices so tender they warm the heart despite their poppycock lyrics (”Doughnut For A Snowman,” “My Europa,” “Chocolate Boy”).  Tobin Sprout’s at the bottom of a manic-depressive well, singing to a pinhole of sunlight, just like Alex Chilton on Big Star’s third album (”Who Invented The Sun,” the second half of “Spiderfighter”).  The 90-seconds-or-less song fragments that had been completely phased out by the time of the band’s 2004 break-up are back with a vengeance (”The Head,” “How I Met My Mother,” “Go Rolling Home,” “The Room Taking Shape”).  A few triumphant pop-post-punk anthems amp up the sing-along factor (”Laundry And Lasers,” “God Loves Us,” “The Unsinkable Fats Domino,” “Either Nelson”).  Occasionally everyone staggers about like they’ve been hypnotized by German Expressionist villains (”Hang Mr. Kite,” “The Big Hat And Toy Show,” “We Won’t Apologize For The Human Race”).  The tunes often fade into each other like channel-surfing daydreams, and the sound quality is only slightly better than a waterlogged 4-track.  In other words, just like the good old days.

Yet amid all the familiar hallmarks, pleasant surprises abound.  Like the organ that comes out of nowhere in the middle of “The Head” and joyfully smothers everything in its path.  Or the chilling power of the neon-noir synths & violin combo in “Hang Mr. Kite.”  Or the didgeridoo pulse of “Waves,” cozy and toasty like an old flannel quilt, yet cool and refreshing like a late April convertible cruise.  Or “Old Bones,” apparently some kind of Irish folk ballad filtered through nitrous oxide and Brian Eno’s Another Green World.  Or my personal favorite, “Imperial Racehorsing,” which bursts with destruction, fanfare and “Helter Skelter” voodoo.

I still have a hard time believing that Let’s Go Eat The Factory is as wonderful as I think it is.  While I eagerly awaited this album, I also tempered my anticipation with what I thought was cold, practical wisdom.  Lightning doesn’t strike the same bottle twice, I told myself, especially after 15 long years.  I thought I’d be lucky if I enjoyed this album a fraction as much as I enjoy Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, which, if I haven’t made clear by now, are two of my all-time favorite things.  Now when I listen to Let’s Go Eat The Factory for the 25th or 26th time, I love it so much I think it must be trickery.  I assume I must be under a powerful and deceitful spell cast by the Toxic Alien Blood lineup.  This can’t possibly be my third favorite Guided By Voices album ever.  It just doesn’t make sense.  I’m in utter disbelief.  Then I remember the end of “The Unsinkable Fats Domino,” when Pollard orders us to “Make disbelief unthinkable.”  Then I listen to Let’s Go Eat The Factory for the 26th or 27th time, and I realize it must be true.  It’s simply too good not to be true.