Guided by Voices Are Back with New Album 'Earth Man Blues'

Hear "Free Agents" from their first proper release of 2021

BY Brock ThiessenPublished Feb 22, 2021

Guided by Voices are once again hitting us with a new album. The record is called Earth Man Blues, and it's out April 30 via Rockathon Records. For a taste, you can hear the album's lead single "Free Agents" now.

While GBV released a string of records in 2020, Earth Man Blues marks their first proper 2021 album, though they did release Heaven Beats Iowa early this year as Cub Scout Bowling Pins.

As leader Robert Pollard explained to Rolling Stone, the album is a result of him going through a series of old GBV demos from the last five to 10 years while staying home during the pandemic.

"I was blown away that I had discarded them," Pollard said. "Anyway, I combined some of them and created new arrangements. Others I just left the way they were."

He went on to call the album "a collage of rejected songs," explaining that "I tied the songs together loosely with characters and stage productions notes to make it seem almost autobiographical.

"After listening to the final sequence, I thought it felt almost like a musical stage production so I added names and places. Actual scenarios and events that were real in my childhood. On the cover, it reads 'A John. H. Morrison Presentation.' John H. Morrison Elementary was the school I attended."

Right now, you can check out "Free Agents" from Earth Man Blues down below.

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