Guided by Voices / Bjork

Guided by Voices

Half Smiles of the Decomposed

(Matador)

The most mythic rock band to crawl out of Dayton, Ohio, bows out with an album that isn't a complete embarrassment.

Last spring, Guided by Voices ringleader Robert Pollard announced that the Dayton, Ohio, indie-rock gods would disband following one final album and one final tour. After 20 years of basement-rock mythology, 15 albums, three box sets, and the biggest sweeping Who-isms this side of 1968, Half Smiles of the Decomposed is the swan song that Pollard promised. And while Half Smiles is a respectable work to bow out on, it really isn't much more. Only "Everyone Thinks I'm a Raincloud (When I'm Not Looking)" compares to the hits Pollard has spit out at a dizzying pace as recently as 2002's Universal Truths and Cycles. Throughout Half Smiles, the consistent theme is that this band has been wronged. Poignant songs like "Gonna Never Have to Die" and album closer "Huffman Prairie Flying Field" are about GBV's grievances not with record companies but with unfortunate timing. And they have a point. If Guided by Voices had been playing classics like "Motor Away" or "Back to the Lake" in late-'60s London or New York rather than late-'70s Ohio, they could have been as big as the Who. Maybe history will see Half Smiles of the Decomposed as more than just the product of another indie-rock band putting out its final album. Mythic bands are few and far between, and despite its shortcomings, this final album of budget anthems and faded-but-not-lost genius is but the final chapter in the career of a band that will be remembered well. (Richard Shirk)

Björk

Medúlla

(Elektra)

Iceland's pop experimentalist starts a vocal orgy, asks technology for a divorce. Things get a little awkward.

More than any artist in the current pop canon, Björk has built a musical persona with her voice. Throughout her stint with avant-pop group the Sugarcubes and her solo career, the Icelandic artist produced a diverse palette of deliveries that were distinctly Björk. But the artist's unfettered emotional expositions--ranging from impish curiosity to somber reflection to jubilation--were also universally human, allowing her to bring synthetic house and club music to a larger audience with hit remixes and originals. That voice is also the reason she could release an album built almost entirely on human voices and not be considered, well, crazy. The album Medúlla is not really a primitive a cappella record; sampling is used liberally, and bass synth and piano both find their ways onto a few tracks. Mostly, though, Björk is singing in a sea of voices, from the crystalline tones of the Icelandic Choir on the lead track, "Pleasure Is All Mine," to the precise beatboxing of the Roots' Rahzel on the albums most electric--and club-ready--track, "Who Is It?" As a composition, the album is an unmatched feat, crisscrossing styles and cultures to create a soothing-cum-schizophrenic collage of voices. By fronting an orchestra of voices that pant, moan, hum and cry, the uniqueness of Björk's delivery can get lost in the shuffle. She ditches much of the choral treatment by mid-album, playing to her strength by working with a well-defined beat, be it synthetic ("Who Is It?") or human ("Oceania, " the song that opened this summer's Olympics). These are the songs that showcase that voice, and that voice is the reason we listen. (Mark Baumgarten)

WWeek 2015