Guided By Voices - How Do You Spell Heaven (New CD)

2017 release from the uber-prolific Robert Pollard and his main day job, Guided By Voices. Guided by Voices is on a roll. One could argue that GBV is never not on a roll, that Robert Pollard”s output plows past the word “”prolific”” like prolific is standing still in a snowbank; and that”s true, but this new version of the band (Doug Gillard, Bobby Bare Jr, Mark Shue, Kevin March) has given Pollard new tools to complement his song-hammer. Thus, ergo, quod erat demonstrandum: roll. Hot on the heels of the smothered-in-plaudits double album August By Cake comes this hot and heavy fifteen-tune long player, a melody-dense thwack to the earholes that will both energize and deplete your body of it”s remaining music-appreciation enzymes. Recorded by the band in New York, and by Pollard in Ohio, How Do You Spell Heaven capitalizes on the current incarnation”s tour-buffed shine without sacrificing eternal verities such as but not limited to: off-kilter rhythmic jolts; krazy chords; purposefully imperfect harmonies; and fragmented structures that start and stop on a coin of small denomination and go somewhere else, and quickly. There”s more, much more-the easiest, laziest way to sum up this latest album is the most obvious: How do you spell heaven? Shout it from the rafters: G-B-V!

• The Birthday Democrats