There have been 13 Guided by Voices albums released since Robert Pollard resurrected the name in 2016, and two of them have been double albums. All of the songs that have tumbled forth would be easy to gloss over if a certain percentage were half-baked throwaways.
Alas, that’s not been the case. Pollard and his long-standing, ever-shifting band may be the living definitions of “indie” and “lo-fi,” but each album has been a sturdy collection of fully-realized songs.
Crystal Nuns Cathedral, arriving just four months after the band’s last LP, is being touted as one that will stand above the pack. “[T]heir 35th and quite possibly…BEST album” the press release so humbly states. It’s not unlike the time Guided by Voices allowed themselves only one album in 2018, the much-acclaimed Space Gun.
Again, the band’s PR team made much of it, insisting that no other record that year would distract listeners from its singular greatness. Judging from the two songs that preceded the album’s release, Crystal Nuns Cathedral has the markings of yet another winner. But what about the rest of it?
When it comes to Guided by Voices, that’s a rather reasonable question. Is Crystal Nuns Cathedral worth the investment of time that a potential fan could also pour into Styles We Paid For or Mirrored Aztec?
For one thing, Crystal Nuns Cathedral follows a pretty no-nonsense format with 12 songs clocking in at just over 38 minutes. Secondly, there are no demo-quality recordings like “Razor Bug” from last year’s It’s Not Them. It Couldn’t Be Them. It Is Them!.
