Saturday, November 7, 2020

Day 0798 - Alien Lanes

Guided by Voices "Alien Lanes" (1995)

Packing 28 tracks in barely more than 40 minutes, this is GBV's eighth full-length album, and their first for Matador records.   The band were given a sizeable advance, yet reverted to type and mostly patched the album together from home recordings and bits.

The songs don't really overstay their welcome, with most being either less than a minute, or at most, less than two minutes.   Many of the songs seem to fade out abruptly at the end, like the band had suddenly grown bored of them and pulled the plug.

The sound is a lo-fi noisy, jangly pop-rock with bursts of punkiness.   Kind of like a mix of Velvet Underground and the Violent Femmes (maybe a touch of John Frusciante's early solo work).   

Enjoyable sounds, though I find it hard to really lock into it with everything being so brief in an almost accidental way.

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