Thursday, October 22, 2020

RE:SCORE - Guided By Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers (1996)

TOTAL SCORE: 68, AVG: 2.83

I'm still not entirely sure what this album is. Released as a fan club release, it shares the overall tone with another 1996 release Under the Bushes Under the Stars, but it comes across sounding like a collection of demos from that era. Or possibly, Tonics and Twisted Chasers can be seen as a Pollard and Sprout collaboration and it is the true first Airport 5 album...
    You can read my original review to get more details, but overall I think my impression of Tonic and Twisted Chasers is generally the same, or if anything, improved a little bit. I used to love Top Chick Silver Chord, but today I was torn on listing it as an "Almost Gem", and other tracks stood out maybe a bit more than they did nearly 15 years ago. Re-listening to Jellyfish Reflector for example, I was surprised by how much it stood out this time around. Overall, there is no denying TaTC as a decent album, even though there is not a whole lot that truly stands out, and it is likely a better experience to listen to it as its own thing than to hear the songs on a playlist disassociated from it. Thematically, the two best tracks (Dayton, Ohio/19 Something and 5, and Unbaited Vicar of Scorched Earth) are strong enough to have fit in fine on UtBUtS, but overall there is a general laid back goodness that envelopes the album. I lastly wanted to note that if you wanted a physical copy of this album, its limited print run means you are likely going to be paying steep markup prices for it.

    Here is the updated ranking:

    Among Bob's Best
    -- none

    Gems
    02 Dayton, Ohio/19 Something and 5
    11 Unbaited Vicar of Scorched Earth

    Almost Gems
    06 Top Chick Silver Chord
    07 Key Losers
    12 Optional Bases Opposed
    21 Jellyfish Reflector

    They're Good
    03 Is She Ever
    08 Ha Ha Man
    10 At the Farms
    15 The Stir-Crazy Pornographer
    16 158 Years of Beautiful Sex
    19 Reptilian Beauty Secrets
    20 As Long as the Block is Black
    22 The Kite Surfer
    23 Girl from the Sun
    24 The Candyland Riots

    They're OK
    01 Satellite
    05 Knock 'em Flying
    13 Look, its Baseball
    18 Sadness to the End

    Could Live Without
    04 My Thoughts are a Gas (Fucked Up Version)
    09 Wingtip Repair
    14 Maxwell Jump
    17 Universal Nurse Finger

    Toss-Offs & Throwaways
    - none

    Given the scoring above, the album would get 68 points total (and an average of 2.83). 

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