The Killers
"The Killers" offers an interesting look at the way Robert Pollard and Todd Tobias work together. It first surfaced on All That is Holy, the first album from Psycho and the Birds, a project that found Tobias augmenting some Pollard demos that featured his guitar and voice. The base of most of the songs is hard to hear, and the success or failure of the finished song, while based on whatever Tobias found as inspiration in Pollard's skeletal structures, largely rests on what Tobias was able to come up with. In this case, it's a song that doesn't necessarily support the front-cover notation -- "File Under: Hard-on Listener," a decidedly Pollardian double entendre that mixes juvenile humor with spot-on commentary.
While wildly prolific, Pollard also seems loathe to leave behind things that might be worth revisiting in higher-profile (and higher-fidelity) arenas (witness "Fair Touching," a song from the Fading Captain EP from Lexo and the Leapers that subsequently led off Guided by Voices last stab at the big time, Isolation Drills). Hence, "The Killers" was resurrected for another Pollard/Tobias project, the Pollard solo LP Standard Gargoyle Decisions. The song fits well as the lead-off for an album that was seen as the more rocking, experimental side of Pollard's then-current sound, the yin to Coast to Coast Carpet of Love's yang.
The song isn't much different here; it still begins with Tobias' inspired '80s guitar solo riff before dropping into a greasy groove over which Pollard sings with menace about "the killers" who are "coming to get you." It's a more muscular, hi-fi rendition, with Tobias able to create the song bed without worry of needing to keep a Pollard demo audible in the process. And Pollard, giving a full-throated performance as opposed to knocking out demo, projects much more, giving the song some heft that it understandably lacks in the earlier version. The latter take runs about 30 seconds longer, much of that given over to a noisy collage that is a fitting end for this angular little celebration of destruction.
While wildly prolific, Pollard also seems loathe to leave behind things that might be worth revisiting in higher-profile (and higher-fidelity) arenas (witness "Fair Touching," a song from the Fading Captain EP from Lexo and the Leapers that subsequently led off Guided by Voices last stab at the big time, Isolation Drills). Hence, "The Killers" was resurrected for another Pollard/Tobias project, the Pollard solo LP Standard Gargoyle Decisions. The song fits well as the lead-off for an album that was seen as the more rocking, experimental side of Pollard's then-current sound, the yin to Coast to Coast Carpet of Love's yang.
The song isn't much different here; it still begins with Tobias' inspired '80s guitar solo riff before dropping into a greasy groove over which Pollard sings with menace about "the killers" who are "coming to get you." It's a more muscular, hi-fi rendition, with Tobias able to create the song bed without worry of needing to keep a Pollard demo audible in the process. And Pollard, giving a full-throated performance as opposed to knocking out demo, projects much more, giving the song some heft that it understandably lacks in the earlier version. The latter take runs about 30 seconds longer, much of that given over to a noisy collage that is a fitting end for this angular little celebration of destruction.