Guided By Voices ★★★★
Strut Of Kings
GBV. CD/DL/LP
The notoriously prolific band’s only album this year – Robert Pollard promises.
Having spent the years since their 2016 reunion giving the fans what they want – triumphalist indie-rock, and lots of it (17 albums’ worth, in fact) – bandleader Robert Pollard says Guided By Voices will release only one album in 2024. But Strut Of Kings gives the faithful plenty to chew over. Alongside the easily digestible fist-pumpers Pollard can write in his sleep (Fictional Environment Dream), GBV’s fortieth also fields knottier, more complex material. Olympus Cock In Radiana (its jagged rhythms and angular bombast suggesting Wire playing prog) and the marvellously downcast folk-rock of Bit Of A Crunch evoke the darker, more nuanced opuses of Pollard’s late-’90s era (Mag Earwhig! and Not In My Airforce). Pollard sounds more curious and engaged here than on some recent releases, and the result is the most compelling GBV of their third act.