Blazing Gentlemen

With 2013’s Blazing Gentlemen, Guided by Voices’ Robert Pollard continues to find melodies for the random words and song-title potentials that buzz through his head the way most people cycle through the lists of things they need to do that day. But music is Pollard’s reason for living, and with the help of his accomplice Todd Tobias, he assembled his second solo album for 2013. Though Pollard expressed a newfound confidence in his writing in the press materials for this album, there’s no discernible change in his approach. Any fan who's listened closely to a Guided by Voices album or one of Pollard’s more focused solo albums will find plenty of reassurances that things here are as they should be. “Magic Man Hype,” “Blazing Gentlemen,” “Return of the Drums," and “Tonight’s the Rodeo” all strike with his standard muscular, slightly British-sounding power pop with nasty guitar sounds; he's a cult artist who never runs out of things to say.