From the forthcoming album Motivational Jumpsuit, the brand new Guided By Voices video “Planet Score” boasts an all-star cast: Matt Jones (“Badger” from Breaking Bad), Nate Corddry (from Mom), Rob Corddry (The Daily Show) and Will Maier (Werner Herzog Eats The World)

“When Bob told me I could direct a music video for the next GBV album, he had just one stipulation; it can’t suck.” says director Mike Postalakis. After seeing the out-come GBV leader Robert Pollard approvingly noted “Now that’s a well put together video with skills. Basketball, acting and rock! And you don’t have to suffer through 4 minutes of lip syncing.”

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/80abb157ae/planet-score

Nate Corddry, who plays “Sports Fan”, remarks: “To put it simply, GBV changed my life. When I first saw them at a small club in Vermont when I was 19, my musical tastes were still very confused. I was spending way too much time hanging onto my hippy jam-band roots, and needed a stiff smack to the face from the fist of rock. Robert Pollard provided that fist. If I remember correctly, he drank a beer per song that night. My life would never be the same. He’s everything that’s great about being an American. My brother Rob, who compellingly stars as “Basketball Coach” in the video, was the one to turn me on to GBV, so to appear in a GBV video with him was a bit of a surreal dream come true. Hopefully this gets me one step closer to doing shots with Bob. The Club is Open.”

Brother Rob Corddry adds: “It was my life’s dream to see GBV play live more than I’ve ever seen anything or anyone play live, and I accomplished that. All I had left were two pipe dreams: to be in a GBV video and to drink beers with Bob Pollard. One to go.”

Motivational Jumpsuit is the latest release by the reunited  Guided By Voices. Its twenty songs (in thirty-eight minutes!) range from the shaggy Who Sell Out  of “Evangeline Dandelion” to the lurching, “Planet Score”. Pollard and co.’s influences are by now so thoroughly assimilated that Guided By voices referents are mostly to other Guided By Voices songs/eras: “Save The Company” calls to mind GBV’s Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes lo-fi glory daze, while “Vote For Dummy” could be from Isolation Drills. For instance.

Recent intramural turmoil aside (Guided By Voices has a long history of members quitting/getting fired/posting private correspondence online/waking up in the gutter), the band has never sounded more cohesive; when Tobin Sprout’s insanely catchy feather-light confection “Record Level Love” bobs up against the deeply purple spray-paint rock of “I Am Columbus,” which then pinballs into the elastic, sprightly “Difficult Outburst and Breakthrough,” the pacing and variety always seem to make some kind of higher sense, if only as an appeal to the senses. This is the fifth record (in three years) by New Era GBV, and there will be more. This is not counting the many solo albums/side projects frontman Robert Pollard has released under his own name and various proxies.

http://www.gbv.com/