During his days in
Guided by Voices,
Robert Pollard established an informal two-tier system for his record releases -- his "real" albums were released through an established label (usually Matador, lately Merge since
GBV's breakup), while his more esoteric or home-brewed recordings would surface through one of his tiny boutique labels, such as Rockathon or Fading Captain. Prom Is Coming is
Pollard's latest outlet for his seemingly endless well of pop songs, but PIC's first release, a seven-song EP called
Silverfish Trivia, suggests the gulf between his official product and his more informal material is narrowing considerably.
Silverfish Trivia is one of
Pollard's most ambitious recent projects, complete with lush layers of keyboards and actual string arrangements, and while fans have grown accustomed to
Pollard's second-string projects sounding tossed together, this is as coherent and powerful as anything he's released since retiring the
Guided by Voices banner. Musically,
Silverfish Trivia plays like a concept piece -- while there doesn't appear to be a unifying narrative outlook (given
Pollard's cryptic lyrical style, it's a bit hard to say), the prog-influenced melodies flow together beautifully, the instrumental passages that bookend and punctuate the piece create a sense of movements rather than individual tunes, and Todd Tobias's production balances
Pollard's impulsive songwriting techniques with a sound that builds his pocket-sized pop tunes into something truly epochal. Hopefully
Pollard and Tobias will keep
Silverfish Trivia in mind next time they go into the studio to make a full-length album; this is a compelling and thoroughly engaging piece of music that plays to
Pollard's strengths while demonstrating he still has new fields to explore. ~ Mark Deming