Tireless rockers Guided By Voices confidently play with sound throughout Universe Room, their eighteenth album in 10 years. Experimental in nature, it consists of 17 short tracks that take you through a non-cohesive sonic journey. It’s fun to listen to but it has obvious highlights.
Opening track “Driving Time” introduces the concept of Universe Room with a chaotic mix of instruments and unidentified sounds against descriptive lyrics. The varied approach continues throughout and includes instrumental tracks, Beatles-esque Pop moments, spacey, progressive Rock, and an overarching commitment to originality.
As is typical of Guided By Voices’ music, the tracks rarely exceed three minutes, the shortest on the album, “Hers Purple”, is a perfect example of when this works well. Similarly to their most popular track on Spotify, “Game Of Pricks”, it is punchy and moreish with understated vocals and an effortlessly cool feel to it. “The Well Known Soldier”, on the other hand, is a short instrumental track that intentionally sounds like a rehearsal clip and needs the context of the rest of the album to make sense. Likewise, “The Great Man” and “Independent Animal” are examples of the two sides of more straightforward Pop from the band, with the latter benefitting from a memorable and enjoyable melody that makes it much more enjoyable to listen to.
Other highlights include energetic “Fly Religion”, and moody Post-Punk back-to-back tracks “Clearly Aware” and “Dawn Believes”. There is an intentional lack of repetition throughout the album, which works alongside the consistently eloquent lyrics to make Universe Room an interesting experience. That said, it feels likely that playlist culture will pick out the tracks that this works best on and leave the rest for occasional revisiting.
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