Waved Out

Personnel: Robert Pollard (vocals, various instruments); Stephanie Sayers (various instruments); Doug Gillard (guitar); Kattie Dougherty (trumpet); Tobin Sprout (piano, high hat); Brett Owesly (organ); Johnny Strange (bass); Jim MacPherson (drums).
By 1998. It was impossible to tell where Guided By Voices ended and the Ohio band's frontman, Robert Pollard, began. GBV, which made its name on lo-fi versions of one man's twisted memories of '60s and '70s pop, rock and psychedelia, was making bright, shimmering, almost-modern studio albums. Pollard, meanwhile, made the kinds of albums GBV used to, short, lo-fi songs, self-consciously weird and still so hummable they could stop a Hollies compilation in its tracks.
WAVED OUT improves on Pollard's excellent debut, NOT IN MY AIRFORCE, by making the music sparer and his meanings clearer. The acoustic songlets "Caught Waves Again" and "Artificial Light" set naked emotions to perfect hooks without any attempt to cover up, as Pollard has done before. Never mind that one is hopeful and one terribly downcast; the theme seems to be the singer's sudden need to communicate concrete ideas. While a couple of new songwriting collaborators--GBV guitarist Doug Gillard and singer-songwriter Stephanie Sayers--give the music a welcome breadth, Pollard infuses the words with an even more welcome catchiness of concept. The hook of "Subspace Biographies"--"There is nothing worse than/An undetermined person"--may be as close to a defining mantra as he's come.