I Love a Revolution

The great thing about the Psycho and the Birds project is that Robert Pollard can crank out a bunch of new songs -- recording them on his boombox -- send them to Todd Tobias and, presto!, a new CD of music.

The bad thing about the Psycho and the Birds project is that a good tune like "I Love a Revolution," one that would have benefited from a full-band, hi-fi presentation, will likely remain nothing more than a lo-fi experiment. A fairly interesting experiment and one with its own appeal, but an experiment nonetheless.

Built as it is on Pollard's boombox recording, the song feels like the middle has been sucked out. Did you ever play with the equalizer on your stereo, pushing the bass and treble to the max while dropping the mid levels to the bottom, thus creating a sort of rumbling, tinny vacuum? That's not quite what you get here, but it's close. Would it kill Pollard to go back in and record a real vocal, if nothing else? I suppose he might get only five releases a year instead of six were he to take that much time. He might need to worry more about lyrics at that rate. The only ones I can make out now are those that give the song its title (and the only ones recorded in the block of text inside the CD case that pulls a line or two from each song).