Doug Gillard
Parallel Stride
Dromedary Records
Doug Gillard has been holding out on Robert Pollard. In artfully unfurling the splendid opening riff to the wistful “Face of Smiles,” the key that unlocks Parallel Stride, the Guided by Voices guitarist’s fourth solo album, Gillard has formed a perfect gem, simply potted and executed, dreamily embedded in an exquisitely melodic, rock ‘n roll minor miracle. Just like that, an earworm is born. He’s been breeding colonies of them for years.
Sallying forth with breezy, slightly weathered vocals, a full heart, and pockets full of catchy hooks, the prolific Gillard — essential contributor to Nada Surf, Death of Samantha, and Cobra Verde and co-conspirator with Neko Case, the Hold Steady, and Richard Buckner — eases through an unassuming set of timeless, well-crafted guitar pop on Parallel Stride. Understatement and maturity win the day, as Gillard offers up lyrical prayers of humility and gratitude, regret and longing, and poignancy and grace, although as “My Friends” cleanly glides and rolls along, he gets a bit cynical about fair-weather friends whose “apologies don’t rate” and are “covertly full of hate.” Loneliness and aging are eating at him.
If “Face of Smiles” raises up and softly rushes into the arms of a long-awaited embrace, dredging up old, buried feelings, while a cruising, urgently strummed “Cannons” and the affecting “Saving My Life Every Day” trust fall hopefully and faithfully into lovely string arrangements, then the raucous, upbeat title track struts by with a different kind of swagger. Here, Gillard tears into stinging leads going off in a thousand directions, having wrestled the gnarly garage-rock ruffian to the ground, freeing himself to fire at will and reimagine The Who as he sees fit.
There is grumbling whimsy in the lowdown, cosmic closer “She Showed Me the Earth,” a lascivious growl emitted as an intergalactic catcall of sorts. Built on a solid foundation of yearning piano, a marching “Lost Alarmists” evokes charming memories of classic pop sophisticates, like Burt Bacharach, as the blissful buoyancy of “New Vista” takes a beautiful tumble and shakes off a bout of melancholy.
Veiled in bittersweet, sighing resignation, Parallel Stride heroically carries out small, everyday emotional rescues, echoes from the ‘60s in mind, as Gillard dials back a bit on power-pop bombast to sublime effect. He is walking in the light.
