best GBV album hands down
like many other fans, I started getting into GBV with Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. After that I loved Under the Bushes Under the Stars. Then I bought this album and thought it was OK, but was not immediately stunned by it. I moved on to buy
Propeller, and then Mag Earwhig. I don't like Mag Earwhig, I think Robert Pollard made a huge mistake in firing the band and replacing them. To end this rambling, let me just say that after listening to their albums over and over this album *towers* above the others in it's evocative melodies and rock appeal. It just ROCKS. 'Expecting Brainchild' is awesome. 'Dusted' is another awesome track. But the whole album is great- you just pop it in and the whole thing flows.
The Beginning of It All
Looking at the history of Guided by Voices, Vampire on Titus was the first in a string of four albums to really capture the sound that the GBV purist has been after ever since. Most of us outside the Dayton, Ohio rock scene didn't discover the band until 1993's Bee Thousand, an album which was an incredible blend of uplifting songs that were instantly catchy but fleetingly brief. Vampire on Titus is a much darker album than the three that would follow (Propeller, Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes) and it's brilliance is often overlooked. I consider it to be much like the Stones' Beggars Banquet, an album that was the start of a string of albums that captured a sound that marked the band's high point. Although Beggars Banquet is considered by some to be the Stones finest, the same cannot be said of GBV's Vampire on Titus. I would never recommend a newcomer begin with Vampire on Titus, but instead listen to it after digesting Propeller, Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. There are some gems here, to be sure!!
flowing-just like the days of early GBV
GBV has always been a sailor into the depths of confused and hallucinatory imagery melted down into its spectral essence, and Vampire On Titus represents the earliest stages of their 'unstable journey'. About half of the tracks have the worst sound production they've ever recorded, but also posess some of the most coherent and intellectual lyrics ("Dusted", "Wished I Was A Giant", "Unstable Journey", etc). Meantime, the rest have the trademark lofi medium, shifting between beautiful ballads of melancholy august ("Gleemer", "Jar Of Cardinals", "Wondering Boy Poet") and creppy lapses into nightmarish lost thought ("E-5", "What About It?", "#2 In The Model Home Series", etc). This album is also the shortest of their albums, but that hardly means a thing in their universe...say Fertile Jim, shall we contemplate existence?
Last 6 songs, brilliant
This collection by GBV came right before they would receive that critical acclaim that would lead them to be known as the world best low-fi band ever. Although spotty sometime on the overall quality of the songs, there are still some great ones. Particularly the final 6 songs are awesome, and definately GBV at their best. You ad in "Jar of Cardinals","World of Fun", and "Donkey School", and you have a 5 star CD. Are there better GBV collections, of course but they still have their charm on this one, so do yourself and Bob a favor and ad this one to your collection.
Exemplifies the lo-fi ethos
What is it about lo-fi that proves so compelling, at least to those of us who cut our teeth at VU's garage a few decades ago? Maybe it's that lo-fi cuts through the crap, getting to the heart of the riff/song (and maybe it is fair to talk about riffs more than songs structures, at least at times). Lo-fi seems intent on reducing music to the atomic level--the antithesis of the fugue--while still communicating something meaningful, primal, though that's a loaded term. The fact that you can barely hear the lyrics on a cut like "Wished I Was a Giant" is a big part of the point, although I think a less conscious and pretentious decision than, say, the impulse behind REM's early inscrutable lyrics. Just as Punk was a reaction against the arena rock bloat that's parodied in the film "This is Spinal Tap," so too does Lo-Fi seem to be a reaction against studio technology that's incredible in its sophistication. Lo-Fi asks: what can I do with these few tools? Answer: Some Drilling Implied.
