(Happy Jack Rock) www.robertpollard.net

Robert Pollard’s way of resting after releasing two new albums in October is to listen through many years’ worth of unused instrumental tracks on old cassette tapes and then record new vocals atop them. This resultant album is short, about 30 minutes, but still manages 13 cuts. This scruffy, salvage-project approach is, of course, reminiscent of Pollard’s Guided by Voices – some of the instrumentals date back to the band so its members are present in a ghostly way. But for the most part, these songs are so fragmented and loosely formed that they have no presence. Toward the end, Pollard does get clashingly energetic on a few tunes like “Peacock” but the album’s best song is “Back to the Farm,” a pretty acoustic track by Kevin March that Pollard has left alone. When he later adds lyrics to it (“Love Your Spaceman”), it suffers by comparison.

Standout Tracks: “Back to the Farm,” Peacock” STEVEN ROSEN