If every artist has his "blue period," the uneven, melancholy Waved Out is Robert Pollard's. When most of your best songs clock in at under two minutes, it stands to reason that your blue period may only last one album, but regardless, this is the Guided by Voices frontman's darkest collection since Same Place The Fly Got Smashed. Set aside the absurdist poetry, the rock gymnastics, and the oceans of beer for a moment, and it's evident that the years are taking their toll on the 40-year-old songwriter, invincible as he may seem.

A quick scan of the lyrics reveals much. "Tell my friends I'm dead/ I don't want to see them," "I'm tired of you," and "seeming like an ancient demon/waking up and waved out" are a far cry from the giddiness of Bee Thousand.

The overall feel of the music even seems to spell out melancholy and disillusionment. Slower tempos and minor keys prevail, and Bob's chirpy Brit-isms are more often than not replaced with a wearier animal. "People Are Leaving," a lament of deceased Daytonites, is one of Pollard's most heartfelt tunes yet, expressing abandonment ("At least add a couple of pages/And dance/before everyone leaves") and a tender rebirth ("The angels are making circles/a gift to every naked fat baby"). The song also boats a strolling piano-based arrangement (penned and played by new collaborator Stephanie Sayers) that is unlike most anything in the GbV canon. Equally affecting, "Whiskey Ships" is a low-key riff-based number that could be speaking of Pollard's revolving cast of musical cronies or his family, or both ("Who knows when one of them should fall/You know without them I am small/Without them I'd go through withdrawal/I'd hear the talking through the wall").

A troublesome air of good ideas gone unfinished also pervades Waved Out, at least at first. The dual-melody trick of "People Are Leaving" seems careless and clumsy, the waltzy "Showbiz Opera Walrus" just sounds like a joke, and the promising soar of "Second Step Next Language" just peters out in a few minutes of iffy feedback.

Then you listen to Waved Out a few more times, Pollard's gifts of sequencing take over, and all those pop hooks you were looking for to begin with stand up and salute like eager footsoldiers. "Caught Waves Again" is a jaunty acoustic trollop ("Went up north the where the city lights shine/like strobes of aurora on bottles of wine") that probably was written and recorded in five minutes. "Subspace Biographies" fulfills the galloping rocker quotient. Ex-GbV mainstay Tobin Sprout, who always seemed to bring out the best in Pollard, makes his presence felt with a trademark drum machine backing on the downright pretty "Wrinkled Ghost."

Still, nothing else on Waved Out manages to eclipse its first track, "Make Use." If this majestic, time-shifting rocker is about Pollard's bittersweet association with Cobra Verde, as I suspect, you get nothing less than Bob's unapologetic view on the situation ("We have suffered the change again/so guess what they're spreading/So very upsetting," "Make use of the boring young heroes/Their efforts not wasted") amid the anthemic rush of a future live staple.

It's hard to say how Waved Out will fit in the continuing Pollard/GbV saga. The uninitiated, of course, will be left scratching their heads. But to those with a sheer affection for Pollard's slipshod antics and his murkier work in particular, this is more grist for the legend mill.

--Lane Hewitt