In my original review of this single I gushed about how there were such gems to be found on GBV singles and EPs and how wonderful it was for fans to have these golden nuggets all to themselves (assuming that only the most diehard fans would search these records out). Is that really the case today though where so many people can access their music through streaming services? Either way, my love for the Glad Girls single has only grown with time...
Isolation Drills is a tough album to review since its impact on the listener is likely to swing wildly based on what aspects of GBV you like the most. In my original review I called it GBV's most accessible, which I'm not sure I agree with anymore. I find The Enemy, Fine to See You, and Privately to be droning and meandering to the point where I have a hard time even parsing an actual melody in them, and those tracks are the key reason that my final score might be surprisingly low for some readers...
Each of the (as of today) four Suitcase boxsets have a corresponding LP compilation that highlights some of the best songs from the set, as well as has a bonus track or two not found in the associated boxset. These are cleverly called Briefcase. I calculated what my highest possible score for the first Briefcase would have been if it contained my highest-rated songs from Suitcase plus the bonus track, and it would have had a total score of 73 and average score of 3.84. Therefore in my view, the best tracks from Suitcase do add up to a very good one-disc sized album. Also, it means that Pollard and I either have different opinions on what the best songs are, or there was more of an intention for Briefcase to survey the Suitcase boxset, and not necessarily be a "best of". What might be annoying for fans, and especially those that do not collect vinyl or missed the boat on limited prints like this, is that the bonus song on Briefcase is better than every other song on Suitcase...
You can traverse all of the original posts that I did on Suitcase back in 2006 to get some insight on the various tracks, and of course you can check out the re:scores for Disc 1, Disc 2, Disc 3, and Disc 4. In hindsight Suitcase really sums a big frustrating piece of being a fan of Robert Pollard and GBV, and that is having to deal with only bad quality recordings of great songs. Some of best tracks on Suitcase ended up being recording into amazing songs by the Boston Spaceships (Pollard, Slusarenko, Moen), and we have proof what a proper recording can do. Yet we are still stuck with bad recordings of could be hits like The Fool Ticket, James Riot, Shrine to the Dynamic Years, Pantherz, Oh, Blinky, and Cruise (I was so happy to get the updated Bunco Men earlier this year). Now, this is a preference of mine, as other fans have a far easier to time seeing past the sound fidelity and even see it as more of a feature than a constraint, so I want to make that clear that I am not preaching to the choir here. I still would love nothing more than Pollard taking out a bunch of poorly recorded classics and re-recording them with his latest incarnation of GBV...
It is interesting how time changes our perspectives on things. Looking back on my original post for the final disc on Suitcase I was so enamored with GBV's late 80's sound that I was really into this disc, since it really does focus on tracks from that era. But as I mentioned countless times in these re:score write-ups, my love for that era has dwindled in the last 15 years in comparison to all subsequent eras. I still like a lot of the songs, but not as much as other GBV-related material. Therefore, I am not surprised that the final disc on Suitcase is currently my least favorite one...
Though not the case when I typed up my original post on Disc 3 of Suitcase, today its claim to fame is probably the four songs that all not only ended up redone as great Boston Spaceships songs, but also all ended up on the same album (Zero to 99). Meddle, A Good Circuitry Soldier, Exploding Anthills, and Trashed Aircraft are all here in early demo-like form, and though Carnival at the Morning Star School wasn't redone with the Boston Spaceships (though they did play it live once), I feel like it should have been...
Again please see my original post for Disc 2 on Suitcase since I am not going to rehash all the detail on this re:score post. For me, the stand-out track on Disc 2 of Suitcase is still Supermarket the Moon, which holds a place among the dark and slow (or ballad-like) songs in the GBV catalog. Similar to James Riot, Shrine to the Dynamic Years is another Do the Collapse era outtake that just screams for an updated studio take so fans can really enjoy it without the middling recording...
Parsing through the Suitcase releases is a lot of work, but luckily I did most of that already in my original post for the 1st disc of Suitcase 1, so please refer to that for details. The first disc of Suitcase includes the amazing Bunco Men, but just recently a new and slicker version of Bunco Men has appeared on Guided By Voices' 2020 album Mirrored Aztec. The most annoying thing about the song was the incredibly low volume it is recording at which makes it tough to include on playlists or whatnot, so I'm going to start using the Mirrored Aztec version from now on...
I generally do not rank live versions of songs, but the live version of Dayton, Ohio - 19 Something and 5 on this EP almost sounds like an alternate studio take given how it was recorded. There are things to like about both the version on Tonics & Twisted Chasers and here that they can stand separately. In original post I mostly discussed the differences between the two versions, and ultimately took a pass on the other three songs on the EP...
My copy of the Hold on Hope EP does not include Perfect this Time (see my original post), but since some copies of the EP do include that song, I'll include and write about it here in my re:score. Even without Perfect this Time I called Hold on Hope my favorite EP, and said it was like a scaled back version of Do the Collapse and more in line with the GBV that we always knew, while still moving forward in a finer production style...
I still remember getting this album and reviewing it for the first time. I had trouble finding it, yet I knew that it was highly regarded by GBV fans, and often remarked as one of the best non-GBV releases (if not the best). I totally get why that is, as both Gillard and Pollard are firing on all cylinders on Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department. If Do the Collapse left you scratching your head, then maybe Speak Kindly is the ultimate representation of GBV for 1999...
I originally wrote that Nightwalker was for diehards only, and consists of odd nuggets from Robert Pollard and his music buddies. Unlike a Circus Devils release, where the oddness is a more up and front feature (and far more polished), Nightwalker comes off as more like the unfinished recordings of folks just sort of fooling around...
When I originally wrote about this album, drummer Jay Madewell corrected me when I noted that Lexo and the Leapers spun their own version of Fair Touching, noting that this is actually the original version. Though Fair Touching would eventually be a big song for GBV on Isolation Drills, it isn't in the top three of this amazing EP from Robert Pollard, Gate Bonham, Tere Lerma, and Jay Madewell...
I wasn't the biggest fan of Kid Marine back in '06 and I still feel that the album was an overall drop in quality from Not In My Airforce and Waved Out. I've heard that Kid Marine was meant as a working class concept album and there is a cohesive theme throughout, but there is also a blandness that may or may not be on purpose given that theme. As with most Pollard releases there are standout moments, such as the wonderful Far-Out Crops or the last part of Town of Mirrors...
Sucker of Pistol City is a good enough song that fans will want to have access to it, but finding a copy of Plugs for the Program can be a challenge given its limited release. This is one that I actually don't have access to so I'm relying on what is available on YouTube, which is both Sucker of Pistol City and the demo of Picture Me Big Time...
Re-reading my original post for Do the Collapse, my feelings about the album haven't really changed. It is a good album that gives us a glimpse of another world where GBV had major-label backing and the production wizardry of the late Ric Ocasek. 1999 saw some great songs from Pollard (and his collaboration with Gillard), and part of the problem of Do the Collapse for me, is that the songs chosen for the album just aren't a great representation of GBV, even if decent on their own merit...
One of the commenters of my original post noted that they enjoyed listening to Waved Out while driving late at night, as the album matched the mood so well. Listening to Waved Out while putting together this updated rating, I was amazed by how well everything just fit together. In fact, if there are two songs that are out of place, they are the amazing Make Use and Subspace Biographies...
