Reviews of new pop, country/roots, jazz and classical releases.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Pop:

GUIDED BY VOICES "Isolation Drills" (TVT, 3 stars)

Former grade-school teacher Robert Pollard is a man of well-documented excess, a zealot who cranks out brawny, hooky rock songs faster than his audience can absorb them. You'd think his pace _ two albums a year lately, plus singles and oddities _ would affect quality, but "Isolation Drills" suggests the opposite: Its daredevil melodies and scrap-heap-prowling wordplay are the work of a songwriter who seemingly can create delirious, consistently inventive tunes in his sleep.

"Drills" has its perfunctory bursts of three-chord giddiness ("Glad Girls"), and moments where sheer post-irony cleverness _ one last-set song asks "How's My Drinking?" _ has to compensate for otherwise ordinary musical ideas. Those earthbound selections contrast well with the juicier material, such as "Skills Like This," which combine relentlessly tuneful choruses with vintage Who bluster and a touch of prog-rock grandeur.

These more energized pieces, epic battles between renegade inspiration and careful craft, demonstrate one of Pollard's gifts. He may be glib and snobby, but he's also a rock disciple who can twist the basic backbeat and the same old rhythm-guitar grind into a new _ and profoundly vital _ expression.

_Tom Moon

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