GUIDED BY VOICES - UNDER THE BUSHES, UNDER THE STARS

A weird GBV album...the last two before this, hell, the last 4 before this were great!!! But here, Boberts Pollardi decided that he needed to grow up and stop recording everything on a cassette in his mom's laundry room that smelled of Country Time and Tide. Jerk. So now, there's the mess of a GBV album. You got rockers, you got some sad songs, some slow ones, and hey! Kim Deal "Produced" part of it. And Stiv "Bators" Albini recorded part of it too!

To be honest, I was let down by this and it wasn't until I heard the live counterparts on the "Jellyfish Reflector" that I realized that it was a good album, but its so long! Granted, all copies have 6 bonus tracks that add on 18 minutes, but even there, there isn't much. You have Toby's "It's Like Soul Man", but it sounded better on "Carnival Boy". And "Take to the Sky" is clearly Robbie just drunk of his bejesus trying to sing while the rest of the band plays a song that they learned after they recorded it and later forgot they put it on the album. Some nice songs though.

Like these ones:

Cut Out Witch
Official Ironman Rally Song
No Sky
Don't Stop Now
Ghosts of a Different Dream (catchy pop nostalgic crap, but it makes me smile)
What, you gotta problem with me smiling punk??? HUH?! HOW ABOUT I BREAK YOU IN HALF, COMMIE?! YOU'D LIKE THAT WOULDN'T YA?! AS I grit my teeth, I know I'll smash a mouthguard into your pretty little face and make you dance like me, like a Peanuts character.

And those are 6 good songs on this 24 track disc.

Part of it was recorded where PAVEMENT (remember when I reviewed them?? Wasn't that AWESOME?!) did "Wowee Zowee".

To be honest, this is a hard album to get through all the way. Here, the skip button is nice, but I'll listen to the whole thing. It ain't like my neck's broken. And the beginning of the first song sounds weird to me, like it cuts in halfway through the first beat and that just throws off my stance on the album throughout it...gahh!

OVERALL RATING - well worth the $5 I spent at Reckless for it, but not much more...
KEY TRACKS - don't stop now,...ironman rally..., bright paper werewolves