Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
lets look at it on its own merits!!!!!, September 9, 2003
By A Customer
all these comparisons with other albums..gbv fans all have their favorites but how would one describe this record to someone that does not know gbv? that is the question no? after all we're all going to buy it...
to me the sound on this album has a lot of who with a sprinkling equal parts rush and the beatles....its definetly a ROCK or RAWK album rather than a pop album.... the first side (i have the lp) or first 8 songs are a bit lighter and poppier than the second side which is heavier and more prog like...the two catchy singles are really something: "my kind of soldier" and "the best of jill hives" and are propelled by nice bass action..."my kind of soldier" was recorded last and added to the record and its production seems a bit brighter .... this is not a lo fi record by any means... but it does have its lo fi moments as the recording of a middle school band playing some horns at the beginning of "my son, my secretary and my country" (i think this is a really great touch btw...that song along with jill hives most harks back to the so called classic gbv sound.. but gbv has moved on in the past few years.. and what they give us here is the best rock record i've heard so far this year... be cautioned that like all gbv records this requires repeated listenings... the first time may be unerwhelming as it takes a while to get past the density of the sound (again , except for jill hives , the title track and the second song).. ..the doug gilliard lead guitar is very prominent and means the bass can seem a bit buried.. this is what separates it from alien lanes where greg demos' bass was more up front and often drove the melody (ie, as we go up we go down).... if you enjoy playing the air guitar you'll dig this record..try it on "useless inventions"... as things stand i think this is the best official gbv record since under the bushes, under the stars... the lyrics at first may skirt by you but as usual with guided by beers you begin to pick up parts here and there and this allows you to imagine what the song is bout.. which i think is one of the nice things about gbv.. that they allow the listener to interact.... after listening to this record a bunch i still could not tell you what its about save to say that there is social/political commentary going on.. there's a line i like "stock markets tumbling, rock markets crumbling"...... there are the usual mentions of satellites and space imagery.. "of mites and men" the closing track closes the album in typical ROCKing gbv fashion... lastly, i saw them live at live on penn a few weeks ago and they kicked it performing these songs live..so they can back it up.... there are some beautiful lead guitar touches on "beat your wings" and "of mites and men".. good guitar tone...
anyways, i'm strongly recommending this album.. if you have the patience to listen to it a few times you will like this..
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Long Live GBV, January 6, 2005
"Earthquake Glue" took about a year for me to get into. As a long time GBV fan, I initially didn't like this at all, I should know by now, as a lot of Robert Pollard's music takes time to give rewards. I kept wanting it to sound like "Isolation Drills" or "Alien Lanes", but once I listened to it for what it is, not what I wanted it to be, I loved it. So many brilliant songs here, like "Mix Up The Satelite", "Useless Inventions", "Beat Your Wings","Dead Cloud", "My Kind of Soldier" and "Dirty Water"...these tunes are really fresh and exciting. Don't expect "Glad Girls" or "Echoes Myron" part 2, though-this is Robert Pollard evolving and moving forward, a nice contrast to the prevoius album, "Universal Truths And Cycles". The arrangements and moods are really fascinating, maybe a little downbeat, but also uplifting in places. Of course, amazing lyrics here and every song paints a colorful picture. Listen to this at home at high volume, and be open minded about it...The drumming of Kevin March is awesome, well done. Another classic in the GBV library.
-Mike A.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Random thoughts here..., May 5, 2004
This album seems to really take off in its second half. Specifically, Dead Cloud through Secret Star represent a solid sinewy block of R. Pollard at his most deeply fascinating, adventurous and, yes, hook-laden. The "singles" on this album are great, catchy, etc, but knowing how easy it is for Pollard to write that sort of thing I'm not really all that impressed by Soldier, Inventions, and particularly Best of Jill Hives which is by far my least favorite song on the album, though undeniably pretty.The song I find most fascinating, for very strange reasons, is probably "Beat Your Wings" which is so lazily infectious in its tumbling flapping rhythm that it actually tends to get immediately tiring... yes, it's boring AND catchy. This is when I really feel like I'm exploring the "playground in [Pollard's] head". In fact, the entire album's "tired" vocal sound, as one reviewer put it, is dead on... there's something wild about the idea of having so many brilliant ideas and melodies rollicking through your head that it gets burdensome... effortless brilliance can be a curse, and it can also provide the instant soundtrack to the state of fatigue it itself creates, and I have never heard that manifest as beautifully as on this album. The hole he digs is bottomless, indeed.
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