Robert Pollard

Robert Pollard is indie rock royalty. He wore the crown for many years as the leader of Guided by Voices. Pollard's latest solo effort, The Crawling Distance, finds the vocalist/guitarist peeling off more slices of indie rock, with signature buzzy guitars and adhering to pop song structure. The album is bipolar, moody and dark. Pollard often switches gears mid-song. A prime example of this is "Red Cross Vegas Night," which starts out quiet before blowing up into a riffy mid-section and then reverting back to thoughtful earnestness. "Cave Zone" is a thunderous anthem, backed by a stop-start riff that will remind GBV fans of Pollard's earliest days.

The Crawling Distance is played entirely by Pollard and producer Todd Tobias, and it will undoubtedly satisfy the hungry appetites of indie rock fans who prefer the genre's earliest progenitors to the neophytes. Pollard's dry, talky-singy delivery allows him to serve as both a fantastic storyteller and songwriter. "The Butler Stands for All of Us" is a dreamy shoe-gazer song, while "It's Easy" may be a killjoy with its broody, almost gloomy tone but it's still powerful enough to move you in your seat.

Not many musicians can remain viable this late into their careers, but Pollard possesses the moves to remain as relevant as ever, continuing to fatten his catalogue of essential songs with each solo record. None of the tunes that comprise The Crawling Distance are throwaways and veritably could have been culled from GBV writing and recording sessions. As long as Pollard's picking up a guitar and committing pen to paper, indie rock stalwarts have nothing to worry about in terms of their genre becoming extinct.

— Amy Sciarretto
03.17.09