Way back in the 1990s, in indie rock days of yore, few bands commanded as much reverence and devotion as Guided By Voices. Hailing from Dayton, Ohio, GBV were less a band than a collective, purveyors and devotees to a genre of indie rock called lo-fi: Songs were recorded cheaply-no studio gloss of which to speak-and with a "do it and move on" attitude. Tape fuzz was omnipresent.
Lo-fi was by no means a fringe movement; Beck's early output can be classified as lo-fi, along with other favorite '90s bands such as Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Sebadoh, Neutral Milk Hotel, Iron & Wine and the Shins. But in lo-fi's entire crop, Guided By Voices often yielded the most "lo-fi" results.
GBV started as a group in 1983, releasing album after album until their disbandment in 2004. The term "disbandment" is loose, considering Guided By Voices never had a consistent lineup outside of frontman/lyricist Robert Pollard-who looks like your favorite and/or terrifying grandfather who binge drinks in his garage. Let's Go Eat The Factory is the first GBV album since 2004's Half Smiles of the Decomposed and the first album of GBV's "classic lineup" (noted because they were the group upon which much of GBV's legend rests on, the lineup which recorded 1994's widely lauded Bee Thousand).
Considering the amount of hype which the term "classic lineup" garners, it's no surprise that innumerable expectations loom over Let's Go Eat The Factory. Will it be another Bee Thousand? Will it hark back to the storied yesteryear of flannel and basement shows? Will it give your hip, cool dad a one-up over this generation's music? The sad truth is that these expectations are dissolute; the term "classic lineup" dissipates its own expectations.
Invariably, part of the reason people loved Guided By Voices was because they seemed so there compared to other more popular '90s bands. Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana didn't live down the street, whereas GBV did, and they were probably drunk.
People felt attached to a band they could pay practically nothing to see in a small venue and get right up next to. That's one of the issues with the lo-fi crowd: a higher recording resolution was tantamount to betrayal, no matter whether the music had improved or deteriorated. There was a loss of intimacy.
To get back to Let's Go Eat The Factory, it doesn't hold up in the context of their '90s output, only because it's a bad comparison. This time GBV is still recording on 4-tracks, but only sometimes: there is a comparative lushness to the album, especially compared to their previous work.
There are fun rockers ("The Unsinkable Fats Domino," "Laundry And Lasers,") plaintive numbers ("Who Invented The Sun," "Hang Mr. Kite,") and eccentric, goofball songs ("Doughnut For A Snowman," "Imperial Racehorse"). Like prior Guided by Voices releases, quantity of songs is a priority, cramming 21 songs into 41 minutes (some of them only 30 seconds long). And all over the band sounds like it's enjoying itself, with Robert Pollard's voice running through as many distinct phrasings as production qualities.
Let's Go Eat The Factory's only real deficiency is the baggage Guided By Voices carries from yonder lost years of the 1990s, which for some people is a make it or break it situation. It's by no means revelatory, but without the weight of GBV's legacy, Let's Go Eat The Factory is a quality, acceptable recording.
Grade: B
