Every Moment Flame On

Why I can't get "Xeno Urban" out of my head — or, rather, a tiny moment therein.

Guided by Voices just released a new album, Thick Rich and Delicious, on Halloween — which is Robert Pollard’s birthday. Unlike some of its discographical neighbors, like Nowhere to Go But Up and Universe Room, it’s not designed as a grower, but to smack you in the face with power pop energy.

As my friend James Toth of Wooden Wand fame correctly put it in a message earlier today:

Just bought my first GBV album since (I think) Earthquake Glue, thanks in large part to Excited Ones! It’s practically a whole album of “The Official Ironmen Rally Song” and “Glad Girls.”

For this Substack, I started and scrapped half a dozen reviews of Thick Rich and Delicious — mostly because everything you need to know right there is in the melodies, lyrics, and saturated, live-in-the-studio energy.

(Such is this particular P in Pollard’s six Ps — prog, psych, punk, pop, power-pop, post-punk. In power pop, all the musical information tends to hit you at once.)

I don’t imagine my highlights would clash with anyone else’s. The pensive, introspective “Lucy’s World” seems to tunnel into itself; the bubbly, slamming, life-affirming “Our Man Syracuse” makes me punch the air; the relentlessly bounding “A Tribute to Beatle Bob” kicks holes in the stratosphere.

But my favorite moment of Thick Rich and Delicious isn’t on any of those songs.

It’s in the one sequenced track number eight — a tracklisting position so unenviable Mark Kozelek wrote a whole song complaining about it:

I wouldn’t say “Xeno Urban” is the most substantive song Pollard ever wrote — more groove and attitude than content, needling some sort of morally vacant city-mouse type.

As Pollard made the aesthetic choice to not package lyrics with Thick Rich and Delicious, I’ll respect his decision and not reprint them — just let the images wash over you.

But don’t forget it’s not his first “Xeno” song:

From 2013’s English Little League, smack in the middle of the “so-called classic lineup” reunion.

“Xeno” is a prefix from the Greek word “xenos” meaning “stranger,” “guest,” or “foreigner.”

Make of that what you will.

Anyway, the moment I’m talking about is near the end of “Xeno Urban.”

After the band slams on their final chord, the song essentially begins again as an acoustic ballad, as if Pollard perceived depth in what could be a throwaway and chose to double down.

At 2:35, he lets an Asus2 chord ring, and quiveringly delivers the title.

(Maybe turn the volume up.)

I’ve listened to Thick Rich and Delicious many, many times at this point, and I still get a shiver out of Pollard’s vocal right there.

It’s not what he sings, but how he sings it.

It sounds like a baleful, late-night warning with a flashlight pointed at his chin — but some sense of silliness or levity takes over, and you hear the twinkle in his eye.

It’s funny and vibey and beautiful.

Words fail — which probably doesn’t bode well for a Substack post.

But this almost indiscernible wrinkle puts a huge smile on my face.

I’m not saying you’ll react this way.

I’m just telling you I do.

When dealing with an artist who’s released 120 some-ought albums, one tends to take a bird’s eye, 10,000-foot view of this insane, lifelong continuum of an art project.

But if you zoom in on these many, many songs, you might find arcane, unexplainable little moments of connection like I do.

I think of how Peanuts, which spanned half a century, has been called “arguably the longest story told by a single artist in human history” — yet it’s the tiny, intimate details that make it sing.

Because as Pollard sang in his knotty, sprawling, must-hear side project Circus Devils — which speaks to his art on a micro level, and not just macro:

Every moment, flame on!