In Stores Now: The Crawling Distance by Robert Pollard

Illustration of the Chingo Chee from St. Nicholas magazine, 1873

Two days into 2009 and I'm already getting the year's new releases in the mail. The Crawling Distance is the first of six currently announced full-length releases that Robert Pollard has planned for release this year. The Planets Are Blasted, from his pop-oriented project Boston Spaceships, is coming in February, and another Boston Spaceships release called Zero to 99 is coming later in the year. Another Pollard solo album, Elephant Jokes is coming in the summer. And perhaps most interestingly, the Circus Devils, Pollard's experimental hard-rock project, is releasing an "inviting, breezy" album called Gringo. And then there's Cosmos, Pollard's collaborative project from Richard Davies, the Australian songwriter behind the Moles and Cardinal. This may be the first year when Pollard has all his releases lined up in January, but I'm guessing we're going to see some releases added to this list as the year goes on. How does he do it?

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The Crawling Distance is release #1, and I think it may be a harbinger of good things to come in 2009. As with all of Pollard's solo releases, this project is largely in the hands of producer Todd Tobias, who arranged the songs Pollard wrote and played almost all the instruments on the record. But he creates a more dynamic sound here than on 2007's poppy but samey Coast to Coast Carpet of Love, and the songs are just a lot stronger than the diverse but meandering Off to Business record from last year.

It has its mini-epics ("Red Cross Vegas Night" and the excellent "No Island"), its sensitive power-pop ("The Butler Stands for All of Us", "Imaginary Queen Anne"), and hard-edged rockers ("Faking My Harlequin", "By Silence Be Destroyed"). The only tracks that nag me a little are the punkish numbers "Cave Zone" and closer "Too Much Fun (Is Too Much Fun)", but even they have nice sonic touches from Tobias that make them interesting. I can almost see Tobias listening to a rough demo of Pollard banging out "Cave Zone", thinking "What am I supposed to do with THIS?" The embellishments are nice overall, like the pulsing sound in the second half of the opening track and the cello on "On Shortwave". I just wish Tobias would abandon the sighing synths that he tends to smear over the ballady numbers.

"It's Easy" is one of two songs on the record that are fleshed-out versions of demos Pollard released in the Suitcase box set. It takes a single-verse sketch and makes a nice Syd-Barrett-style pastoral psych number out of it. Those sighing synths are there, but the arrangement is tasteful overall, with a nice buildup and release. You can preorder The Crawling Distance from Amazon HERE, and you can check out a couple preview tracks from Pollard's other 2009 releases at MAGNET.

"It's Easy" by Robert Pollard