Guided by Voices: Alien Lanes

There they go. They’ve taken a baby step towards sounding like professionals. Still sounding homemade, but coming to the realization that some folks want to actually be able to hear the music they purchase, GBV have attempted to clean up the quality of their recording just a little bit. There’s still plenty of hiss and canned sound, but some of the harmonies and guitar can actually be heard and enjoyed amongst the background noise. This album didn’t leave my five-disc player rotation for at least six months, as my windowless, brick-lined Third Ave. apartment in Manhattan rang with the sounds of joyous Brit (by way of Ohio) guitar pop. This, due to timing and just flat out fun, is my favorite GBV album. Sure, it’s a little crazy at 27 tracks (even though all but six of them are under two minutes), but it’s hard to listen to this thing and not just absolutely fall in love with music. I dare you.