In June of 2024, Guided By Voices released their 40th album, Strut of Kings, to much acclaim. Bandleader Robert Pollard and the longest running GBV lineup of members Doug Gillard, Kevin March, Mark Shue and Bobby Bare Jr, have recorded and incredible string of of 17 albums since 2017.
Today, the band is excited to announce the 18th Guided By Voices album in 10 years, aptly titled Universe Room. Packing a vast mix of energy levels and previously undiscovered constellations of sounds into 17 diverse tracks over a compact space of less than 40 minutes, the new record ventures into truly surprising territory, where barely any song segments are revisited, typical choruses are a thing of the past, and fidelity daringly shifts between lo-fi and hi-fi. The unique audio palette certainly wasn’t unintentional on the parts of bandleader Robert Pollard and stalwart producer Travis Harrison. “I wanted to create, hopefully, an experience, kind of a wild ride, where the listener would want to hear it multiple times in order to grasp all the sections and fields of sound to discover something new with each listen,” says Pollard. “I trimmed down the songs so that there wasn't a lot of repetition, so you get a lot of sections that happen only once or twice.” The unprecedented approach to the expansive songwriting adds to the surprising new frontiers of aural sensations from Pollard and members Gillard, March, Shue and Bare Jr. “I wanted to get a little more sonic diversity for this album,” says Pollard, “So I asked each member of the band to record all the instruments for one song and I did three songs myself.” March’s contribution, opener “Driving Time”, kicks off the record with the nighttime chirping of crickets before adding layers of guitar and percussion, creating a spectral and distinctive new atmosphere for GBV, which is echoed by Gillard's spacey off-the-cuff guitar work in the outro of lead single “Fly Religion”. Guitarist Doug Gillard was recently featured in Guitar Player Magazine and picked in Rolling Stone’s 250 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time. “For the rest of the songs, we used a lot of different approaches to the recording of both the instruments and the vocals,” adds Pollard, which is evident on tracks like “Clearly Aware”, where the band was completely recorded on just one mic. Universe Room embodies a realm of new horizons for Guided By Voices, who continue to redefine and expand as they blast off to unpredictable worlds.
"Fly Religion" is available on streaming services this Friday, November 22nd. Universe Room is due for release on February 7, 2025. | 
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