Seriously how many albums has Robert Pollard released now, either solo or as part of Guided by Voices? Now his Teenage Guitar project puts out the follow up to 2013’s Force Fields at Home album. It’s more of the same from one of alternative music’s most prolific and influential songwriters.
More Lies from the Gooseberry Bush is peppered with what sound at times like field recordings, whilst this adds another texture to the songs, it makes them sound almost like musique concrète in places. On ‘Instant American’ this works incredibly well, while Pollard sings/shouts acapella, the field recording comes from a bar/restaurant, where there are pauses in his vocals we can hear the patrons talking. At times it sounds like he’s with them and they are responding to him, this is one of the strongest tracks on the album. ‘Spliced at Acme Fair’ has the sounds of an Oktoberfest Oompah band starting their song, then the field recording ends, Teenage Guitar start to play mimicking the Oompah band. The nearest the album gets to fully formed songs are ‘Gear OP’ (a rousing acoustic number), ‘No Escape’ (this one has a chorus) and ‘Matthew’s Ticker and Shaft’ (a fuzzed out melody driven by Syd Barrett-esque lyrics).
The problem with More Lies from the Gooseberry Bush is that at times it sounds like someone has wandered into a recording studio, picked up the first instrument they have come across and started playing it and started shouting their random thoughts (‘Good Mary’s House’ is a prime example of this). This is the closest that I’ve heard to outsider art for a long time, I know that this kind of experimentalism is all part of Pollard’s genius and myth, but considering how many amazing, well crafted indie pop songs he’s written in the past, it seems a shame that he feels the need to put out an album like this. If this was a Guided By Voices\Robert Pollard demo album it would be fine, but to class this an actual studio album, at times, feels like he is diminishing his previous albums. If you are a die-hard Guild By Voices/Robert Pollard fan this album is for you, If not, stick to the beaten path as the ground gets a bit bumpy and uneven here.
[Rating:2]
