Let’s not go eat the ENTIRE factory…

Alright, look. It’s not 1995, it’s not 1988… hell, it ain’t even 2002! Nope, it’s 2012, and “Let’s Go Eat The Factory” is the onethousandsixhundredandseventyseventh elpee by GUIDED BY VOICES. You’d think, by now, after doing this rock and roll thing for DECADES, after moving the music all the way from their basements and bedrooms to the ears of entertainment-starved humans (and many birds as well) all across the Northern Hemisphere (where the money is, generally) that Guided By Voices would dispense with the completist aesthetics and concentrate on making a record that is as good as could possibly be by MAKING EVERY MOMENT ON THE RECORD COUNT. By coming in with 21 (TWENNYONE, COUNT ‘EM!) excellent songs. By leaving the half-baked, masturbatory nonsense OFF this new record and show the world that Guided By Voices, with this “Classic Lineup” (jesuschristalmightyalready… really guys?) of grandparent-aged men could make something seriously great. That doesn’t happen. This elpee is just a little less than half bullshit.

If yer a (hardcore) GBV fan, what yer probably gonna tell me is “Butbutbut that’s what they’ve always done, that’s what I love about themmmmm…” and I get the wabi-sabiness, and the low-fidelity oddball throwaways are fine to a point, and even sometimes endearing, but that stuff has to be kept at 10% or less. People pay money for music, but they’re also paying for effort. I mean, despite all the utter crap that (purposely) litters “Alien Lanes”, I still think of it as a great record (despite sounding as if it were recorded on Thomas Edison’s Sound Machine beneath several dozen mattresses), but having to fast forward through barf like “Pimple Zoo” to get to the next “Game Of Pricks” was annoying and unnecessary.

Here is a PUBLIC SERVICE. I’ve divided up the tracks for you:

“Laundry And Lasers” – Takes awhile to build, but pays off in GBV rock glory about halfway through.

“The Head” – Shambling, escalating guitars, a strong but weird beat, and Bob Pollard sounding like he’s singing into a soup can. It’s what we all really love most about this band.

“How I Met My Mother” – Fabulous, as they say. Would make a nice theme song for a sitcom, if they changed “My” to “Your”.

“Waves” – Made for driving on country roads through open landscapes. Greg Demos makes his bass guitar sing toward the end of this one.

“We Won’t Apologize For The Human Race” – Kind of a drag/dirge, but the title is great and at about the halfway point, the Robert Pollard/Tobin Sprout chorus is stellar.

“The Unsinkable Fats Domino” – This is an even better title, and it’s a rock and roll juggernaut while it lasts. Too bad a mayfly would not live long enough to hear the entire track.

“Who Invented The Sun” – Slow dance number, where Tobin Sprout channels Elliot Smith. Quite lovely.

“Doughnut For A Snowman” – Pretty one about a little girl and the gentle uncles who spoil her. Magical.

“God Loves Us” – Another Sprout number that builds from a ripple to a tidal wave in just under one and one half minutes.

“Spiderfighter” – YET ANOTHER SPROUT COMPOSITION with a swamp-thing guitar lead and an insistent rhythm that ends too quickly.

“Chocolate Boy” – Melodic and strummy, with strings that stir.

If they’d just let some of the above tracks live long enough to reach their full potential, Guided by Voices could have set the following pile of trash aside for future use in some over-priced box set larded up with other odds and ends like Pollard singing while brushing his teeth, harmonizing with a cow, and whatever other crackpot bullshit ideas they inevitably have lying around.

WHAT NOT TO EAT FROM THE FACTORY:

“Imperial Racehorsing” – What is infuriating about this is that it’s actually two songs: The first minute or so is nothing more than Pollard moaning along with a band stuck in neutral until a horn of some sort bleats, AND THEN they finally find a gear, but only to shift into an inferior version of “The Gasoline Drinkers”, a great track from The Circus Devils, another of Pollard’s one hundred and thirty eight side projects. If they’d just done “The Gasoline Drinkers,” this track would be in the list above.

“The Big Hat And Toy Show” – The band tunes up while Bob makes shit up. YAWN.

“Hang Mr. Kite” – Self-indulgent and maudlin, just how I remember Greg Lake songs. I hate it.

“The Room Taking Shape” – Pollard and Sprout get drunk in the middle of the afternoon, walk down to the end of the block, and busk on the corner with an acoustic guitar. Their voices are not just out of tune, they’re out of town. Children point and laugh and flick cigarette butts at them.

“Either Nelson” – “I challenge you to rock”, says Pollard in the opening line of this messy, sloppy fiasco. I challenge him to hire an editor.

“Go Rolling Home” – Bob picks up a guitar and presses play on a Panasonic cassette recorder he’s had since he was a child. YOU’VE HEARD THIS BEFORE.

“Old Bones” – Someone fell asleep with his head on the electric keyboard, someone decided to sing along with it, and someone decided to record this. WHY?

“My Europa” – Really, at this point, I’m wishing some Mexican drug cartel-types would kidnap Bob mid-song, duct-tape his mouth shut, throw him into the trunk of a late-seventies Oldsmobile 98, and drive it off of a bridge into Lake Erie. On the other hand, Bob would probably sing through the duct tape into the old, hand-held cassette recorder he carries around with him SO HE CAN DOCUMENT HIS EVERY THOUGHT and someone would lay down a guitar and bongo track and make another terrible song out of that. Jesus.

“The Things That Never Need” – Really? REALLY? I can’t even describe how pointless this one is.

“Cyclone Utilities” (Remember Your Birthday) – Practice session as album track.

It’s great to have the old mid-nineties version of this band back, but man… buy the tracks individually, or get that forward button finger warmed up.