If the history books get it right, people in the future will be surprised to learn that the most gifted songwriter of our era was an alcohol-swilling grade school teacher. Robert Pollard is carrying around more brilliant pop songs in his head right now than most musicians will ever hope to write over a lifelong career. I love this guy. He’s never put out a single record that didn’t contain at least five jaw-droppingly catchy rock anthems, and bless his beer-soaked heart, he commits pretty much everything he ever writes to tape. Pollard is probably responsible for a good 10% of the entirety of recorded music.

From a Compound Eye marks Robert Pollard’s first solo effort since dissolving the trusty old workhorse Guided By Voices. While it doesn’t really vary wildly from his work with that band, the freedom from the moniker seems to have reinvigorated him. From a Compound Eye contains probably a higher ratio of great songs to throwaways than anything he’s done since Alien Lanes. Pollard possesses an uncanny faculty for writing diabolically catchy, ingeniously structured pop songs that simultaneously pay homage to and outdo their classic rock forbearers. Familiar and innovative all at once, Pollard writes the best songs his influences never wrote. This talent is on full display throughout From a Compound Eye. While the record is stylistically more varied and the songs more fleshed out than your typical Guided By Voices album, the overall impact is vintage Pollard: a handful of great tracks, a few brilliant ones, a couple that are too half-baked to make much of an impact.

If the album never really establishes Bob Pollard as a radically different entity than Guided By Voices, it at least succeeds in delivering some great pop songs. Pollard seems intent here on mastering virtually every imaginable iteration of rock ‘n’ roll. His sweet tooth for prog-rock grandiosity flares up on mini-epics like “Kingdom Without” and “Conqueror of the Moon” (at 5:04, probably a record for the longest track he’s ever composed), while his jones for experimental lo-fi weirdness gets worked out on “Denied” and “Kensington Cradle.” Elsewhere, he simply delivers picture-perfect pop songs like “Love is Stronger Than Witchcraft” and “Dancing Girls & Dancing Men.” And thankfully Pollard’s trademark bizarre-world sense of humor is still here and still weird. “I Surround You Naked” gets my vote for best song title in history, and leave it to Pollard to craft a pair of delicate, liltingly pretty guitar ballads called “Cock of the Rainbow” and “Fresh Threats® Salad Shooters and Zip Guns.”

Not everything works, but when it does it’s transcendent. Pollard is probably the most reliable (to say nothing of prolific) songwriter we have these days. At this point in his storied career, Bob Pollard has earned a space next to pizza and sex in the Even When It’s Bad It’s Still Pretty Damn Good Hall of Fame. Few albums contain enough good material to justify a 70+ minute running time, but From a Compound Eye handily accomplishes that feat. It’s Pollard’s strongest record in years and was quite simply a joy to listen to. Highly recommended.
www.robertpollard.net
www.mergerecords.com

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Lucas Salg

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 Past Constructive Criticism

douglas j paxson posted the following Constructive Criticism: my three favorite lines in rock n roll...I really don't mind how much you love me oooooh a little is alright...when i get to the bottom, i go back to the top of the slide then i stop then i turn and go for a ride then i get to the bottom and I see you again... the inprint where you sat, did the ripples cause by that........ Bob's is a bad-ass!!! Roger John and BOB