40 years and nearly as many official albums in, it's amazing that
Guided by Voices
aren't constantly repeating themselves. While they're not breaking brand new ground with every release, the music is diverse enough to make the band's tendency to churn out multiple albums a year seem driven by inspiration more than mere compulsion. Even
Nowhere to Go But Up
, the band's third studio effort of 2023 and 39th long-player overall, stands apart from the two records that preceded it by months as much as it carves out a new space for itself in the lengthy
GbV
saga that's been mutating since the early '80s. Where
La La Land
broke up its art-prog experimentalism with
Beatles
-y pop melodies and
Welshpool Frillies
leaned into on-stage excitement by recording live to tape (both of these albums were also released in 2023),
finds the band embracing over-the-top production power. The album starts with
Phil Spector
levels of pop enthusiasm with the anthem-like "The Race Is On, The King Is Dead." It's all loud, melodic guitars and bashing drums, but the melodies are backed up by chiming bell tones and string sounds deep in the mix, making for one of the more orchestrated
tunes and a perfect backdrop for especially memorable vocal lines from
Robert Pollard
. The entire first half of the album is driving, excellently produced power pop. Songs like "Stabbing at Fractions" and "Puncher's Parade" are beefed-up versions of the kind of tunefully melancholy, midtempo songs
Pollard
used to record exclusively on cheap cassette four-tracks, benefiting here from studio sheen and clarity without completely losing their mystery. Of course, the band wanders into weirdness before too long, indulging in a lengthy
Who
-like intro on the otherwise absurd abstract rock of "Love Set" and flexing their prog rock powers on "Jack of Legs," complete with epic and declamatory horns and a song structure that rarely repeats a section. By the end,
grows more compositionally adventurous, but saves some catchiness for even its most complexly mapped songs. The element that sets the album apart from other 2020s
output isn't the songwriting as much as the sound they achieve; a nearly slaphappy implementation of the studio to make
's oddball musings and occasional heart-rending turns of phrase bigger than ever. ~ Fred Thomas