This is really emotionally intelligible, is rarely said about rock music, or any music, but it is a really nice sentence, but it really is true for Guided By Voices’ politicized final tapes of 2024, first and lastly it is cerebrally intellectually astounding, but still down to earth as anything they release must be and could be released in any era or genre. “Show Me the Castle”, “Serene King“, “Bit of Crunch”, “Dear Onion” to finisher “Bicycle Garden”, and the opener for Strut of Kings from Pollard and company is a return to form for Guided by Voices. There are metaphors abound, really bounding with the idea of strutting being the simplest of the notions presented here. Is Pollard’s wry, but generous skepticism shining, through here, or is there more than a shot at the system?
Though one can always hope of course for something more from the cerebral likes in the music industry, as they are few and far between. Your classics, The Monochrome Sets, Sonic Youths, Morrisseys, beatboxers, Atmospheres, RJD2s, Ratatats, and mixing with niche divinities, Serengetis, Fugazis, Pixies, or Jane’s Addictions, and some of that shines through from the get go like Bee Thousand.
When Guided By Voices first gained familiarity, as with Jane’s Addiction, albeit on varying levels, they rocked unparalleled levels of statement music. Again, as with other bands’ classics, say, Atmosphere’s Overcast or Seven’s Travels to Fugazi’s 13 Songs, sometimes this dissipates in a vapor that only the believers can still see. Through that motion, classics will come around again to their roots, Jane’s Addiction opened on fire, but was relatively unheralded when ‘90s influence was dying and Strays released, likewise Mi Vida Loca or this decade’s So Many Realities Exist Simultaneously by Atmosphere, then Guided By Voices’ Strut of Kings follows Sandbox, Propeller, Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia, and Tiger Bomb, borderline concept albums, but integral to Guided By Voices, “Intellect” or self-imposed “intelligibly” scribbled notes, as eponymously. Pollard’s side project single “In The Brain Self” therefore, so much more similar to Ritual De Lo Habitual and the gap of distance to Strays, so then we have Alien Lanes, Propeller, Sandbox, and again the important Tigerbomb EP with say Class Clown Spots a UFO (QRO review), English Little League (QRO review), Let’s Go Eat the Factory (QRO review), Under The Bushes, Under the Stars, or The Bears For Lunch (QRO review) in between, followed now by Strut of Kings and a group of “Live/Suitcase”releases; and what all of these records bear, is a boundless appeal to the emotion of being green-minded, open-minded and because of that sentience “in on the disorder” to misquote an a phrase.
Seen from the noise of “Olympic Cock in Radiania”, melodious “This Will Go On”, joyful sounding, “Fictional Environment Dream”, to less cerebral but angry cerebral, “Cavemen Running Naked”, “Serene King”, “Bit of Crunch”, and “Timing Voice”. Though finally, we are brought back to earth, with “Timing Voice”, “Olympic Cock in Radiana”, “Serene King”, or “Bit of Crunch”, getting to “Bicycle Garden”, and “Space Gun” the single from the last truly phenomenal combo album from the band. That happens, the space between greatness emotionally and greatness sounding, a correspondence of The Bears For Lunch emotion greatness, all the way to the sounds King of Struts or Space Gun (QRO review) bring, but instrumentation of both sound and atmosphere matters for a band trying to be emotional and thoughtful, emotionally thoughtful, or intellectually sounding, and The Bears for Lunch, King of Struts or Space Gun deliver. King of Struts is just like that instrument greatness.
