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View Full Version : Earthquake Glue Reviews- List good ones you find...


cungar
08-17-2003, 01:52 PM
I know Rich puts these on GBV.com but I figured a thread would be another nice place. So far I haven't found a really bad one. Of course the Pichforkmedia.com hasn't come out yet.

From
http://www.playlouder.co.uk/review/+earthquakeglue/

Favorite quote: "Ultimately, however, the Guided By Voices experience is one of joyously simplistic pop tunes tumbling over each other to be heard, like Andrex puppies in a tumble dryer."


This is a true story, this is: about a decade ago your hack was privy to a GBV gig in CBGB's at CMJ in NYC and it wouldn't be totally unfair to say that they were an utter, utter M.E.S.S. It says much for Robert Pollard's troopers however that even back then there was a rival British journalist on hand to insist that Guided By Voices' recklessly haphazard set was in fact the epitome of underground genius. So it goes in the world of GBV, stalwarts-and-all troubadours of the US underground whose umpteenth album, 'Earthquake Glue', once again posits Pollard as purveyor of stupidly breezy tunes. Reassuringly, the artwork looks like it was put together by a child. Happily, the odd tune here and there sounds uncannily like it is being made up on the spot (notably 'Dead Cloud', which resembles a drunk The Jam working out which Beatles tune to turn into 'Start!'). And, predictably, Guided By Voices didn't get where they are today without accidentally nodding towards their longterm peers such as Flaming Lips on the squelching 'I'll Replace You With Machines' or Michael Stipe on 'Useless Inventions'. Ultimately, however, the Guided By Voices experience is one of joyously simplistic pop tunes tumbling over each other to be heard, like Andrex puppies in a tumble dryer. Digging deep into these fifteen insanely enthusiastic tracks, one is struck by the sheer loveliness of 'Mix Up The Satellites', the jingle jangle sound of exuberance that is 'A Trophy Mule In Particular' and the proud, upbeat 'Secret Star'. By the time you get to the end, the fact that 'Of Mites And Men' parodies a particularly drug-addled John Lennon is merely par for the GBV course. It's been a rocky one, but they always get there in the end...

Simon Williams

cungar
08-17-2003, 02:03 PM
Here's #2

http://www.deo2.com/pop/default.asp?id=2486

Guided By Voices: a marginalized longevity

There is a theory of communications quantifying the relationship between informative and redundant. In streetspeak – amount of new versus the known, familiar, recycled. The greater percentage of redundant the more widespread its appeal; for instance, pop music is something like 30 percent, or less, new. Anything around the mid-mark is marginal and it can get popular but it can also remain on the cult side, such as Radiohead, some R&B, most of rap, metal. Above it is the more informative and getting on a limb, avant-garde is the rarefied air where we find the most intriguing artists.

So, in the ‘percentage theorem’, which doesn’t account quality, where do Guided By Voices and their ‘Earthquake Glue’ album fit in? Well, liked for their retro/post-modern approach to songwriting with distant echoes of the original psychedelia (Ray Davies, Syd Barrett, Roy Wood), GBV come armed with an armful of songs that gladly surfs the sonic cloud fantastique!

The upbeat of the opening ‘My Kind Of Solider’ is succeeded by ‘My Son, My Secretary and My Country’, an acoustic-driven number with folksy overtones, and then the freakbeating ‘I’ll Replace You With Machines’ that sounds like a cross between Gary Numan and Einsturzende Neubauten! Quite a ‘werk’, and such sonic triumphs continue on bass-propelled-blues-mutation ‘Dirty Water’, jaggedly-rhythm’d ‘Dead Cloud’, the tonal cascade of ‘Mix Up The Satellite’, the Who-like sized epic ‘Secret Star’…

‘A Trophy Mule In Particular’ is like a T-junction where prog (early Genesis), noise-beats (Sonic Youth-ish) and stoner lyrics (Beach Boy-esque) are conjured for a lift-off. As idiosyncratic as one should expect after the mainman Robert Pollard’s two decades in the business. The alchemy of ‘Earthquake Glue’ is a mixture of fear and survival instinct. Approach this album as if your life (of a music lover) depends on it. It today ‘creative’ climate it may actually do.

Thus, our heartometer (as accurate as humanly possible) measures that GVB are 65 to 35 on the info side. Probably the last great album of the summer…

8/10