Starts at the River

Robert Pollard's voice is fairly malleable, and it has been interesting over the course of his career to watch as he experiments with the possibilities of his instrument. On "Starts at the River," he may have found at least one frontier not worth pushing through, singing at the very top of his range for the song's entirety.

The song is a chugging rocker from Doug Gillard, who handles all of the instrumental chores. Pollard, for whatever reason, chose a melody line at the upper end of the register, singing a bit of abstraction, tackling drink and the scent of a woman and fire before hitting the chorus:

It is here?
In the head of a heart
Where it counts? Where it starts?
Is it in the river?

Pollard's vocals aren't bad -- we're not talking Geddy Lee here -- but a little of this goes a long way.

The most notable thing about the song is Gillard's great solo in the middle, a muscular bit of string-wrangling that sounds like a wrestling match between guitarist and guitar, one won, ultimately, by Gillard.