In Stores Now: Let It Beard by Boston Spaceships

Illustration from an advertisement for Northern Mist Aqua Tissues, 1960

Wires and Waves is back from its summer vacation, and the break was well-timed - I needed at least a full week to get my head around Robert Pollard's new album, the phenomenal 76-minute Let It Beard. This is the fifth album from Pollard's Boston Spaceships has released since 2008, and it strays a bit from the band's normal approach of having former GBVer Chris Slusarenko and Decemberist John Moen mine the rich power-pop vein of Pollard's songwriting. As a big fan of that formula, the first four Spaceships albums are among my favorites of Pollard's post-GBV works, and, on paper, Let It Beard should be less fun for someone like me. This time, Pollard challenged Slusarenko with an extra-weird set of song sketches, and Slusarenko turned them into a heavy art-rock marathon that's all over the map style-wise. But I think I'm falling in love with this album anyway.

Let It Beard has a few key things going for it that prevent it from being what could be a long, sludgy slog. First, Pollard's compositions are accessible in spite of being very quirky, with cool lyrical turns and a plethora of unexpected hooks. Elegant ballads like "No Steamboats" and "Let More Light Into the House" bump up against upbeat alternate-universe-hits like "Tabby and Lucy" and the horn-embellished "Christmas Girl". Second, key tracks get an injection of freshness from a variety of guest guitarists - Wire's Colin Newman and the Dream Syndicate's Steve Wynn add old-school post-punk riffs to "You Just Can't Tell" and "I Took on the London Guys", and, most memorably, J Mascis adds a note-perfect solo to the fiery "Tourist UFO" that may be my favorite guitar moment in any Boston Spaceships song.

Balancing the momentum and ebb-and-flow of a 26-song epic is tricky, and the balance of Let It Beard seems a little off for the first couple listens. After about ten listens through, though (wow - that's twelve and a half hours with this album already!), the sequencing makes a lot of sense. The album's wonky side three includes the album's catchiest song, while the album's poppiest side (side two) has as its centerpiece the totally bonkers "A Hair in Every Square Inch of the House". Now, to my ears, this album starts strong and ends strong with no noticeable slow stretches - I've lived in the world of Let It Beard for a while, and I've gotten over the aural jet lag. It's a big and interesting world, too - I'll miss the easy-on-the-ear power pop that Boston Spaceships delivered on their first four albums, but I can see why Pollard decided to retire his Boston Spaceships project here. There's really no coming back from this one.

"Tabby and Lucy" by Boston Spaceships