Who counts the albums, gives the names? The indie heroes have arrived at album number 41.
Those who are not as deep as a thematically with Guided by Voices can easily lose track. The band from Dayton, Ohio, has released 40 studio albums since 1987, sometimes three in one year and a full 17 since 2017. The last, Strut of Kings, was published in June last year. Guided by Voices is the musical vehicle for the singer and guitarist Robert Pollard, who has already published 22 solo albums.
Let’s just forget all of this and pretend that Universe Room is not the 41st album of the in-base rockers, but the debut of a new band. We would immediately put guided by voices in the guitar drawer. But we would not let the poisonous guitars dazzle and realize that something is different with this band: the twirled compositions do not really fit into the 08/15 indie scheme, the songs sometimes tip into the pastoral, there are tons of stylistic flugers , not only between the, but also within the songs.
And that reminds us of the experimental approach to young British postpunk bands such as Black Midi, Squid or Black Country, New Road. We would certainly compare them and also to Guided by Voices, the primary fathers of another kind of indie rock.
You can find out which albums were published in February 2025 via our monthly publication list.