“I’m a student of hooks,” the exceedingly prolific Guided by Voices frontman Robert Pollard tells Rolling Stone. If you’re familiar with GBV’s 40-plus-album catalog, that’s an understatement. “That perfect combination of a lyric and a chord pattern that gives you that chill up the back of your spine.”
The band nails that combo with their new single “(You Can’t Go Back to) Oxford Talawanda.” It’s the first track off of Thick, Rich and Delicious, their second album of 2025. The LP arrives on Halloween, which is also Pollard’s 68th birthday.
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According to Pollard, the new single includes a hook he’s been singing his whole life, but had yet to find a home for. A straight-ahead rocker mysteriously named after an Ohio high school, the track is a worthy inclusion to the band’s 30-plus-song set list: sing-along heavy and driving. It’s part of a suite of new songs — as well as older tracks culled from previous sessions — that the band recorded at a Brooklyn studio in an effort to capture the feel of their live shows.
Thick, Rich and Delicious follows February’s Universe Room, of which Pollard told Rolling Stone: “I wanted to create, hopefully, an experience, kind of a wild ride, where the listener would want to hear it multiple times in order to grasp all the sections and fields of sound to discover something new with each listen.” Both albums were produced by Travis Harrison.
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