Search - Robert Pollard :: Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department

The best non-GBV GBV record, period!

Phil Szostak | in front of my computer | 11/14/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are the proto-typical casual Guided By Voices fan, and are afraid to dip your toe into the pool of abundant side-projects, not only are you are lost to a wealth of wonderful music but you are missing the slow and facinating evolution of Robert Pollard as a maturing songwriter. The annual Guided by Voices records, while great in their own right, probably don't make as much musical sense standing alone, without witnessing the often bizzare but consistantly provocative Fading Captain series releases in the intervening months. Now I know what your thinking...'I don't have a million dollars to spend on every Pollard project nor the will to go back and collect and listen to this breadth of material'. Well, that's why I'm writing this review! "Volunteer Fire Department" is your one-stop shopping for everything wonderful about Pollard's solo work. From top to bottom, this record is full of tunes that will never leave your head and heart and is easily up there with the greatest of GBV. Pollard himself has said that he regrets not releasing this record as a GBV record, it's that good. (the distinctions between GBV records and solo stuff is dubious at best, considering that Bob Pollard created GBV and is the only primary songwriter of the group) And the best songs from the record have become staples of their amazing live show, including 'Pop Zeus' (a full-out rock classic), 'Do Something Real', 'And I Don't' and, of course, 'Tight Globes' (about a outer-space race, I think, with the most mind-blowing rock guitar riff that I can think of!). This album surely rocks, and rocks hard, but the quieter moments are some of Pollard's best including the psychedelic and creepy 'Port Authority' and the heart-wrenching 'Larger Massachusetts; And the most amazing thing about "Speak Kindly" is that all the songs, though written by Pollard, are played brilliantly by Doug Gillard, awesome lead guitar player for GBV, but here playing bass and drums and everything else, with a clean power and understated majesty rarely heard. The combination of Pollard's beautious melodies and Gillard's spirited musicianship is on full display and shines like a pure white light. 'Speak Kindly' is a great rock record, and is one of the few I've written a full review for. Please don't hesitate to buy this cd and then tell a friend about this buried classic! Excelsior!"

A Quiet Masterpiece

Arch Llewellyn | 07/04/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm reviewing this record because in his last S.F. show, Rob Pollard complained it hadn't received much critical attention. That's a shame, because Pollard's in the middle of a one-man renaissance. This album finds him in a quieter mood than on Guided By Voices' Do The Collapse. Doug Gillard lends clean, inventive arrangements--heavy on acoustic guitar and '70s-era Townshend-style riffs--to a batch of some of Pollard's most thoughtful songs to date. The sparer treatment (all instruments were played and recorded by Gillard on his 4-track) shows off Pollard's gift for direct, surprising song structures that don't depend on studio effects for their power. Some very catchy tunes here--"Frequent Weaver," "Pop Zeus," "And I Don't," "Life Is Beautiful" and "Tight Globes" are as great as anything he's done with GBV--but I've come to appreciate this album most for the moodier tracks that took longer to grab me ("Messiahs," "Larger Massachusetts" and "Soul Train College Policeman" are all worth the wait, very different from the stuff he's doing with the band).This album should also help put to rest Pollard's rep as lo-fi posterchild. The songs here are as carefully produced as anything on Do The Collapse, though the studio wizardry isn't as obvious. The more I listen to Pollard's music, the more I'm convinced he's one of the best writers to ever strap on a guitar. I hope this record finds the fans it deserves."

Robert Pollard's new music shows maturity and a departure

Dan Shu | USA | 12/30/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Robert Pollard, who generally seems to feel his last album is his best, was in no way less enthusiastic about this release. Here we find him collaborating with GbV guitarist Doug Guillard who basically played all the instruments, leaving Pollard to handle the vocals and the bulk of the compositions. In the fashion of earlier GbV releases, most of the recording was done on analog cassette four track, with Pollard adding vocals at Dayton's Cro Magnon studio. The results are excellent. Pollard demonstrates measurable growth with a healthy amount of longer song forms and his characteristic harmonic and melodic inventiveness. Guillard here brings his own sensibility into Robert's world and fits like a glove; his formidable grasp of the history of rock music is well in synch with Pollard's. The opener, "Frequent Weaver Who Burns" features crisp steel string acoustic against slinky melodic bass and very impressive Keith Moon-esque drumming -- it's maybe one of the best Who tunes ever written. Throughout the record, potent and interesting lyrics abound, Pollard delivering the goods with impeccable melody and totally groovy-fun rock star attitude. Gillard uses his four track techniques dazzling success througout, creating surprisingly colorful landscapes that bring Pollard's writing to life in a whole new way. But what perhaps drew me in to this recording more than anything else was Larger Massachusetts, a beautiful ballad which appears to be bare bones voice and guitar. Pollard's often cryptic lines seem here to indicate genuine insights and maybe even revelation more appropriate to these times than ever: "The medium-sized world is making a comeback, the larger world is drowning..." The low budget packaging and distribution of this recording offer it little promise of reaching a wide audience that Pollard so deserves. But it does further confirm Bob as one of the most unique and vital voices in the music today."