letās barrel into the final album from the OG reunion line-up and visit the COOL PLANET
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Cool Planet was always my least favourite of the first reunion albums, I donāt mind it and thereās still some decent tunes (a couple of bangers) but the recording is just quite sloppy but not in a good lo-fi way. Theyāve made the effort to go to a studio but barely bothered to tune their guitars and Bobās voice sounds shot for much of it. Kevin March is drumming up a storm but feels out of place when the rest of it is a bit sloppy. I was sad that they broke up after this but this album made me think maybe it was the right time.
I listened to it a lot on release though as I was reviewing it and warmed up to it over time, donāt think Iāve listened to it in a little while so will be interesting to give it another spin and see how I feel about it now. Same with Please Be Honest next week which I found underwhelming at the time but will be interesting to revisit it now in the wake of all the recent identikit albums and see if it stands out a bit more.
PBH is interesting too as itās a Bob solo album in everything but name, which weāve never even come close to before despite the fact that heās so clearly been GBV for their entire existence
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With the double albums coming up
- Do more song vote slots for those albums, maybe 5 per album (same as the classics got)
- Stick to 3 songs to make things balanced
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on first listen think Cool Planet is a good few rungs above English Little League! Carries that energy over from MJ where it actually feels fun and lively - though the tunes overall are definitely weaker and could do with quite a lot of polishing up
think the trudging back half of ELL will be something I never return to
tbh the ESP Ohio album is more of a GBV release than PBH, since it was pretty much the current lineup minus Bobby Bare Jr. I was going to suggest we include it here, but weād be here until Christmas if we start adding more stuff to review 
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i was thinking of a final roundup week/fortnight after the studio albums are done (actually giving King Shit, Tonics etcs some time to shine) so will consider it for then if I go ahead
also not one Iāve listened to so will be interesting in that way too
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probably also just nice finding thereās still new GBV songs for me to discover, without even having to go deep diving into the bsides. Long live the listening club!
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Hereās my review of this album from 2014 when I was doing a bit of writing for a website my friend was editing at the time. Feels maybe slightly too generous in retrospect, I think I didnāt want my first GBV review to be too mean, but I also listened to it quite a lot before writing it and warmed to it a bit
I mentioned that the band could essentially go on forever and then they made me look silly by breaking up months later, but they have since proven me correct at least.
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My recollection of Cool Planet was that it was the midway point quality-wise between ELL and Jumpsuit, with it perhaps being slightly closer to the former than the latter. It routinely appears near the bottom of most GBV album ranking exercises Iāve seen, which is a bit of a giveaway I suppose.
Having said that, a cursory glance at the track listing reveals quite a few tunes I remember really enjoying.
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Iām pretty sure this is the album they had to partially abandon recording due to the massive āpolar vortexā snowstorms which hit the Midwest around that time, hence the album title. I guess they couldnāt be arsed enough to return to the studio afterwards to apply whatever finishing touches were required.
EDIT: just realised you mentioned the polar vortex stuff in your review lol
I thought the narrative was always that they were sort of stuck in the studio during the polar vortex (I remember a press photo of them all in big coats). In which case youād think theyād have a bit more time to work on it!
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Yeah youāre probably right actually. I suppose itās because bits of the album sound unfinished.
btw that was a good review on the Muso site 
Cheers! The only other one I ever got round to reviewing was Space Gun so Iāll try to remember to post that in a few weeks. Think I put my name down to review Styles We Paid For and started writing it and just never got around to finishing it.
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that was a great review
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The Cool Planet b-sides are pretty good! 
First up we have the Males of Wormwood Mars flipside A Year That Could Have Been Worse which is actually a Bob tune sung by Mitch Mitchell. Itās a nice delicate little song held together by an insistent Stereolab-ish organ sound:
Then we have the Table At Foolās Tooth b-side Pillow Man, a lovely Tobes tune featuring murky vocals hidden within a sweet, breezy melody:
The final standout was the All American Boy b-side Eyesore Wives, a punky, twisted garage rager with Bob providing vocals to a Mitch-penned song. This is the best of the bunch IMO and couldāve been on the album itself:
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Fun video
A catchy song but a horrible guitar tone and why is the bass nearly inaudible?? They could have made a better stab at this one.
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need to go back to your previous bsides collections, cos these are great. Iād 100% have put A Year on the album as I love the organ and just hearing a diff voice on a GBV track, Pillow Man is better than at least one of the Tobin tracks that actually made the cut, and yeah Eyesore Wives rocks and would again add a fun extra bit of variety to the tracklist (though I think it would work better as a 60 second blink and you miss it freakout)
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Yeah Iāve enjoyed rummaging through all these reunion era b-sides, mostly itās been a Tobes-a-thon but there have been a few hidden gems unearthed.
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