Under the Bushes Under the Stars
Not the ultimate album side ofBee Thousand, the album that will always be their high-water mark, Guided by Voices'Under the Bushes, Under the Stars's songs are more fully realized. Familiar bits and pieces continue to shine through, with basement Beatles and backyard Who here, and New Zealand lo-fi and acoustic Led Zepplin there. Bob Pollard and Tobon Sprout's ideas, still impeccably timeless hooks that cut through the murk to reveal the scratchy pop gem within, are examined and, maybe for the first time in the band's canon, thoroughly re-examined in the drawn-out song structures. Still, you could fit a baker's dozen of Guided by Voices tunes inside somebody else's hidden track, and have room enough left over for "Girlfriend in a Coma." Comfortably. Not all the songs stand up to the scrutiny, but the majority of GBV's tunes, as always, reveal the joy of the most minute moments that the majority of rock bands crash through while admiring the forest and missing the trees (bushes?). And no one knows the lexicon more thoroughly than GBV do.--Randy Silver