The first GBV album by their new lineup, which consists of leaders Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout, backed by the entire lineup of Cobra Verde. This is a conceptual rock opera inspired by the Who's Tommy, the Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow, Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and the Edgar Broughton Band's Wasa Wasa. Pollard is the main character in this sprawling narrative, an insectile cartoon figure named the Magnificent Earwhig, who interacts with a wild cast of characters in songs evoking nostalgiac memories of an Ohio boyhood, starting one's first band, and inhaling American roadside pop culture. 'Despite the progressive conceptual '70s mindset informing this project, the record is still a collection of beautifully twisted pop songs and can be listened to as either an opera or just a series of rock arias'.
Disc 1:
1) Can't Hear The Revolution (1.36)
2) Sad If I Lost It (3.10)
3) I Am a Tree (4.40)
4) The Old Grunt (1.28)
5) Bulldog Skin (2.59)
6) Are You Faster? (1.13)
7) I Am Produced (1.07)
8) Knock 'Em Flyin' (1.53)
9) Not Behind The Fighter Jet (2.13)
10) Choking Tara (1.24)
11) Hollow Cheek (0.32)
12) Portable Men's Society (4.17)
13) Little Lines (2.02)
14) Learning To Hunt (2.24)
15) The Finest Joke Is Upon Us (3.08)
16) Mag Earwhig! (0.40)
17) Now To War (2.44)
18) Jane Of The Waking Universe (2.26)
19) The Colossus Crawls West (2.14)
20) Mute Superstar (1.24)
21) Bomb In The Bee-Hive (2.03)