Universal Truths and Cycles

Performer: Guided by Voices
Engineer: Scott Bennett; John Shough
Producer: Todd Tobias; Guided By Voices
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: Guided By Voices: Robert Pollard, Doug Gillard, Nate Farley, Tim Tobias, Jon McCann. Additional personnel includes: Helen Yee (violin); Asha Mevlana (viola); Steve Berson (cello); Chris Slusarenko (piano); Todd Tobias (keyboards). Recorded at Cro Magnon Enterprises, Dayton, Ohio; Waterloo Sound Studios, Kent, Ohio. Personnel: Helen Yee (violin); Scott Bennett, Chris George (cello); Chris Slusarenko (piano). Recording information: Cro Magnon Enterprises, Dayton, OH; Waterloo Sound Recordings, Kent, OH. Photographer: Daniel Coston. When an accomplished and venerated band releases an album which could be referred to as its umpteenth release, often the phrase "more of the same" is derisively bandied about. However, while this could be said about Guided By Voices on UNIVERSAL TRUTHS & CYCLES the meaning is subverted. For GBV (really Robert Pollard and whoever he decides to work with on a given album) "more of the same" could be just about anything from experimental indie rock (BEE THOUSAND) to prog rock (MAG EARWHIG!) to more poppy material (DO THE COLLAPSE). The constant is ingenious, dynamic unpredictability. On the opening track, Pollard exhorts "sit up and beg for slivers of language," and UNIVERSAL CYCLES & TRUTHS, like many a preceding GBV album, offers up a plethora of (mostly) succinct songs secreting smidgens of taut language, observations, abstract stories, and witticisms, backed by a musical topography which alters as frequently as a cityscape. Songs vary from the distortion drive of the all-too-brief "Love 1" to the imploring arena-rock ballad "Storm Vibration" and on to the pop puffery of "Pretty Bombs," which would have XTC fawning over its Beatles-esque wanderings. UNIVERSAL TRUTHS & CYCLES continues the inventiveness which has earned GBV its role as tribal elders of the indie rock world.

Rolling Stone (7/25/02, p.75) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Pollard's oddball creativity and his mates' beefy, traditionalist guitar rock ensure that this will remain the finest Polalrd-led project for...at least a few months..." Spin (8/02, p.112) - 7 out of 10- "...Epic power pop..." Alternative Press (7/02, p.82) - 7 out of 10 - "...A record that's not only full of his usual crafty Anglophile pop and guitar smashing Who-homage, but also full of vision that makes Pollard worth rooting for...forays into prog-rock complexity make the record stand out..." Magnet (8-9/02, p.73) - "...Brick-shithouse-solid...a wholly rocked-out mid-fi approach..." Mojo (Publisher) (1/03, p.75) - Ranked #15 in Mojo's "Best Albums of 2002" Mojo (Publisher) (7/02, p.104) - "...A many-splendoured gas..." NME (Magazine) (6/22/02, p.53) - 8 out of 10 - "...Much better than a record made by chronically drunk middle-aged men has any right to be...Robert Pollard and his cohorts have returned to what they do best: making off-kilter mid-fi guitar rock...They're one of life's most deeply reliable pleasures."

Led by former school teacher Robert Pollard, Dayton, OH's Guided By Voices pursued an aesthetic marked by structural brevity, lo-fi sound, bizarre lyrics, and a preference for early to mid-period Who and other primal pop-rock. Pollard continually shifted the group's lineup, with a new outfit backing him on nearly every record. On 1999's DO THE COLLAPSE, GBV polished its sound considerably, bringing in Ric Ocasek as a producer. GBV played their final show on New Year's Eve 2004, however Pollard continues to write and record as a solo artist and with various collaborators.

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