The second full-length by
Psycho & the Birds was recorded in the same fashion as 2006's
All That Is Holy and its follow-up EP,
Check Your Zoo:
Robert Pollard recorded his rough guitar and voice demos (according to the press kit, on the same cheap department store boombox that much of the early
Guided by Voices material was recorded on) on his own and sent them to multi-instrumentalist producer Todd Tobias to be fleshed out. Because Tobias was
Pollard's primary creative foil in the final era of
Guided by Voices (
Universal Truths and Cycles,
Earthquake Glue, and
Half Smiles of the Decomposed), the overall effect on
We've Moved is that of a cross-generational
GBV mashup, as if the defiantly lo-fi sound of
Propeller and
Vampire on Titus and the more polished pop/rock sound of the mature band are battling each other out. Occasionally, early
GBV wins: "Tomorrow Man" finds
Pollard singing lines like "Hey, you burned-out piece of shit" to little more than amplified tape hiss, stray guitar chords, and what sounds like a ping-pong ball rattling around an echo chamber. Sometimes, Tobias all but drowns out
Pollard's original tape in a brisk barrage of guitar overdubs, as on "Hound Has the Advantage" and the
Led Zeppelin pastiche "I'm Never Gonna Leave, You're Never Gonna Win." But most often, the two elements fuse together naturally, resulting in vintage
Pollard pop songs like "Hybertech Green" and "Person Who Lives in a Thundercloud" and unexpected genre experiments like the genuinely lovely, "Sleepwalk"-style weepy guitar instrumental "Poor Old Pine" and the peculiar new wave norteño of "Corona Grande." Casual
Guided by Voices fans are often leery of
Pollard's side projects, owing to the undeniable reality that among indie rock singer/songwriters only
R. Stevie Moore is less able to edit himself effectively, but
Psycho & the Birds in general is one of his more accessible guises, and
We've Moved is as good or better than anything
Pollard has released since the demise of the mothership band. ~ Stewart Mason