Highlights: Save The Company, I Am Columbus,
Shine (Tomahawk Breath)
7/10
North Korean people will vote against. England will win the World Cup again. In fact, anything
could happen. World will collapse. Robert Pollard will still be Robert Pollard,
no matter what. Releasing yet another batch of ridiculous snippets and
half-songs. An act of artistic sabotage that is looking more and more
fraudulent each year.
And I still find it irresistible, even if technically Motivational Jumpsuit is one of
Pollard’s less focused songwriting bouts in recent years. The Bears For Lunch (which still sounds like a late-period GBV classic)
this clearly is not.
But no fears. Explosive garage rockers ending halfway,
psychedelic tomfoolery, half-baked power pop, flimsy acoustic strummers, it’s
all in here, catchy and murky and brilliant and deranged. Besides, it’s
interesting to hear a song by Robert with the title “Writer’s Bloc”. I wonder
if that happens when he doesn’t drink or else drinks too much. In fact, I
wonder if that happens at all. Tobin Sprout’s songs are reliably charming and
disarmingly clumsy, though I sometimes get the feeling he isn’t trying too hard
and is contributing leftovers (lovely though they are) to these never-ending
projects with Pollard. Saving his best for future solo albums. So for every
godlike beauty (“Shine”) there will always be some pleasant and harmless filler
(“Calling Up Washington”).
Overall, whatever. ‘In a world of airplanes’, may this
go on forever, though next time I hope the songwriting will be slightly sharper.
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