Customer Reviews

Kid Marine

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This LP meant nothing to me on the first few listens, I couldn't hear any tunes or find any redeeming features in the music.I thought that finally Pollard has released one album too many. But it crept up on me slowly and after a dozen spins it opened up and bloomed. Songs such as Enjoy Jerusalem!, Town of Mirrors and Flings of the Waistcoat Crowd have a complex and haunting structure that rank as high as anything in Pollard's career so far. Powerblessings stops me in my tracks with its beauty every time I hear it. When is this man going to stop making wonderful music? Not for a long time I hope.

Dayton OH's prolific Pollard, longtime genius behind Guided by Voices' Britpop bash and glimmer, walks a darker, more instrospective road with this first offering in the "Fading Captain" series. Achingly poignant and full of oceanic imagery, Pollard's got plenty to say about home, fame,isolation, tradition, and the passage of time. While listeners shouldn't expect to make complete sense of the album's abstract, sinuous poetry, it's a breathtaking, cathartic listen. Musically akin to Gabriel-era Genesis with flashes of Who-like acoustic brilliance, Kid Marine pleases both the ear and the heart. Get submerged.

Love it, love it, love it. BUT! I didn't love it until about the 5th listen - Aren't all the greatest records like that? I was careful to reserve judgement on this record like most records. Because while it may do nothing on first listen, that is because there are too many expectations on a first listen. Then, one day, you throw the album on and sort of have it playing in the background, and your attention is repeatedly drawn to it as you realize over and over again "hey! this is a great song!"- That is the essence of Pollard and GBV.....great songs that take time to absorb and assimilate. Far Out Crops is gorgeous and has spent months in my head....Pollard should be paying my brain rent.

When I heard that Pollard was releasing his, like, 500'th album on internet/mail order only, I was suspicious. Hey, this is the format used by most artists to throw away ideas and b-sides, and Pollard's solo albums have always been about 1/2 experimentation anyway. But I relinquished and was delighted at the results. First of all, "Kid Marine" stands as the most solid solo by Pollard yet...no whack 30 second experiments, but rather a bundle of noisy, introspective pieces. To be honest, the album lacks any single track as great as "Waved Out's" "Make Use" or "Not in my Airforce"'s "Maggie Turns to Flies", but it doesn't matter. The key here is a solid work that is consistent start to finish and keeps you coming back to it. In that manner, "Kid Marine" works like a charm, and damn if "Television Prison" hasn't started creeping up in my head when I least expected it. If you're a Guided by Voices fan, you must have this. Not a toss off, but a splendid, well put together collection of Pollard's perfection.

the man himself declares this his best work, so who am i to quibble? though i prefer the oddball nature of his first two solo albums, this, his third, is a wonderful ride. not as lo-fi as its predecessors, it possesses a charm all its own. as GbV were moving away from the DIY sound, they risked losing some die-hard fans. instead of using the solo records as an opportunity to placate them, kid marine proves that this was the direction bob wanted to go. can you really recreate the magic of bee thousand and alien lanes over and over. and with that it is perplexing that as the sound gets more accessible, the songs require more patience from the listener to sink in and truly absorb.

for that reason, this may be one of the most difficult records bob has ever done. and, ultimately, one of the most rewarding.

Simply put, this album is only fair. Pollard seems to slip into his usual solo album structure by stacking all the great tunes in the front and filling the rear three quarters with filler. With the exception of "far out crops" the above is true. However, the good stuff is great. Submarine Teams is new ground for Pollard's appearant desire to actually start producing songs. Great intro includes an interesting use of "looped pollard voice chunks" I find particularly groovy. Gone is the low fi, true, but how long can you expect Pollard to be entertained by drinking 14 beers and attacking a 4-track in his basement. OK, maybe forever, but you can't blame him for trying something different.

My first impression now :) is that the albums was not good at all; GbV evolved from good old lo-fi to, well i can't put a name tag on it but it's just some kind of studio hi-fi rock album, probabely made to sell. If they start with keyboards the whole thing turns out wrong. It started with Mag Earwigh! and it just got worse. The sort of 4/4 straight to the head kinda heavy wall of sound stuff just is nothing compared to there old albums like the brilliant Under the Bushes or Self inflected Areal Nostalgia or Same place the fly got smashed. There is missing something, perhapes it is Toby Sprout??? Conclusion: lo-fi turns in to hi-fi.