From a Compound Eye
Sure, he's had like a dozen albums out since disbandingGuided By Voices(including a comedy album!), but this is Robert Pollard's first major solo release since GBV's final tour, so it's kind of a big deal. Do I need to tell you that these twenty-six songs are an eclectic batch, that some are throwaways and others slices of pure pop genius, that some songs were recorded in a full studio with a bnd and others were plopped down to a hissy four-track in a stupor of some sort? "Dancing Girls And Dancing Men," one of those timelessly simple pop ditties that Pollard seems to write twenty of before breakfast, is seriously worth the price of admission, and that's just track three.  Recorded in 2004 with Todd Tobias, Chris Sheehan and Scott Bennett,F.A.C.E.may not stop GBV fans from entirely mourning the loss of one of the smartest and raddest bands of the last twenty years. But it's at least as good as the first albums that George Harrison and Paul McCartney released after the Beatles split up, and it surpasses GBV's last few studio albums. So what's there to complain about?–Mike McGonigal