The reason, so the spin goes, is the presence of ex-Cars leader Ric Ocasek in the production room. Clearly, he added a sheen to GBV not often heard, but it's ultimately Pollard who has made the decision to go pro.

Pollard, backed up by yet a different ensemble of like-minded Cheap Trick fans, signals his intentions boldly on such titles as "Picture Me Big Time," when he reports that he's grown tired of being every hipster's closely guarded secret: "You want to keep it closer now, don't you?/But there are words that speak to everyone /Which I will deliver to you."

GBV lyrics, as a rule, a pleasantly nonsensical collection. It's the songwriting craft that is most notable here. The album's opener, "Teenage FBI," is a brain-sticker of the first order, a ringer for a Romantics, A-Side. And unlike the umpteen other GBV records, solo projects, and spin-offs, this one continues strong song-for-song, with notable highs with "Surgical Focus: and "Wrecking Now." Gone, mostly, are the half-realized sketches, replaced by fully-realized productions. I liked the previous messy quality, but strangely, I miss it now.

The album jewel is the sweetly sad "Hold On Hope." Here, Pollard offers us not just a knack for catchiness, but a real poignancy: "Through each life of misery / Everybody's got a hold on hope," he explains, plainly. "It's the last thing that's holding me." The touch of strings, which would have elicited a smirk on early albums, is added here appropriately, with a straight face.

In CD back cover, Pollard has his band posing as costodians, gazing upward. That's just right. With Do the Collapse, Guided by Voices presents itself as a blue collar band with a perfectly timed ambition, quirks and all.