Isolation Drills
Each Guided By Voices release emphasizes a different aspect of the quirky combo\'s quest for perfect power pop. This Rob Schnapf-produced gem pumps up the guitars and turns the band\'s often lo-fi jangle into a hi-tech sonic crunch. Singer Robert Pollard is nearly trampled by the furious riffage and chunky guitar chords that come screaming in full-scale stereo. Hiding underneath the attack, Pollard continues to amaze with his inexhaustible library of classic pop melodies and contagious Brit-pop enthusiasm. Not bad for a former schoolteacher from Ohio. The album begins in particularly brawny fashion. \"Fair Touching\" and \"Skills Like This\" slide towards \'70s power-pop hard rockers Cheap Trick in terms of obvious influences before lightening up just a tad for the layered swooning of \"Chasing Heather Crazy.\" The 55 seconds of \"Frostman\" recall the band\'s casual whimsical days — that Pollard never abandoned but puts on hold here. One hesitates to call this a step towards maturity — there\'s always a childlike wonder blowing through these sweet blasts — but tracks such as \"Twilight Campfighter\" and \"Glad Girls\" and even the near prog-rock of \"The Enemy\" are brought to their full potential.
Tonight, the people of Dayton, Ohio will sleep a sound sleep. Children, tucked\n\ tight in their beds, will dream ...
Guided by Voices fans who embraced them as the saviors of lo-fi pop after discovering such four-track-in-a-basement masterpieces as Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes had better learn to live with the fact those days are gone for good -- the high-gloss production of 1999's Do the Collapse made it clear that GBV topkick Robert Pollard wanted his band to compete in rock's big leagues, and Isolation Drills only confirms that notion, sounding even more polished and precise than its precursor.