Guided By Voices is officially throwing in the towel with Half Smiles of the Decomposed, and in so doing put a laurel upon the head of their class-act of a leader Robert Pollard. This is a bit of a pun as throughout much of his self-styled musical career he has held down a position as a school teacher. Half Smiles doesn't quite have any of the stand-out knock out tracks of Isolation Drills, but is a much better record than Universal Truths and Cycles and every bit as good as their previous Earthquake Glue.

Guided by Voices career has been characterized by a revolving door cast of bandmates, mostly due to Pollard's unorthodox method of operating a rock band, but even so they've been consistently producing albums since 1987 (nearly an album per year) and in fact was one of the first bands that I ever heard the term "indie" applied to. It wasn't until Do The Collapse that I heard the Guiding Voice, which I liked, but did not prepare me for Isolation Drills which topped the list of by best-of in 2001.

Pollard's voice is an inconsistent instrument and something of an acquired taste, but not a great deal so to Michael Stipe and early Peter Gabriel and along with the Beatles and more prevalent the Who sums up the lion's share of their musical influences. It should be said here, however that GBV has created a sound uniquely their own, and is just as recognizable as any band in existence.

Half Smiles really is a fitting swan song as they touch upon just about every different phase of their long career - even including a little interstitial bit that is extremely low-fi and sounds like one of John Lennon's goofy little asides. For the most part they've eschewed their more low-fi roots here, but there isn't a single guitar voicing be it acoustic or electric that doesn't get a moment in the sun. As always you can point to the influences as they weave their way in and out of Pollards almost stream-of-consciousness song structure. It's a style that he's perfected and that yields plenty of interesting hooks often in the most unexpected places, much like a half smile of the well-composed.