If Guided By Voices had released Do the Collapse in the early '90s, their cultish fans would have been screaming ""Sellout!"" from chord one. After a decade of DIY basement fuzzrock, suddenly everyone's favorite ex-substitute teachers have finally released a highly polished bit of unabashed hi-fi and have gone on the record (in Billboard Magazine no less) as being ready to conquer FM radio. This would have been cause for excommunication six years ago, but everything's changed now. After the demise of the untenable ""indie rock"" genre and the uprising of technologically sophisticated hip-hop and electro, lo-fi has gone from a movement to a gimmick (just ask the All-Stars), and no one's really all that worried about taking down The Man with a well-written single. Unless they wear prosthetic boobs or disfigure themselves onstage while singing it.

But the motley band from Dayton has never been interested in shock, so in our post-Foo Fighters era, they're finally free to slick up all they like. And slick it up they have, right down to hiring Ric Ocasek to produce their first outing on TVT (a label which is even nominally indie, if you care). The evidence is all over the record. Don't read too much into the fact that the fantastically catchy single ""Teenage FBI"" opens like the best of the Cars and should be on the soundtrack of Square Pegs: The Movie; give a listen to the rest of the CD and GBV's harmonic, hooky-as-hell R.E.M./Beatlemania is still in effect. It just sounds a lot cooler now that you realize there are instrumental layers and some very very smart synthesizer work going on. Forgive them that ""In Stitches"" sounds a little like Foreigner and ""Hold on Hope"" would do the Goo Goo Dolls proud. Everyone's entitled to one or two off notes on an LP of 16 full songs, most of which evince the kind of veteran poise that Eve 6 and the Counting Crows would wet themselves for. But then don't take our word for it -- now that they've finally put their heart into it, there's no chance you won't be hearing at least one of these new tracks on that FM dial soon.