Guided by Voices has released its 44th studio album.
Yes, 44.
At this point, Robert Pollard has probably written three more albums while you were reading that sentence.
“We Outlast Them All” comes from Crawlspace of the Pantheon, released in May 2026. Pollard wrote the song’s music and melody straight through in one take, although he spent considerably more time shaping its lyrics.
The result is an anthem about perseverance that never becomes self-important. Pollard has described it as something resembling the band’s “We Are the Champions,” except the victory is not necessarily fame, fortune or a reserved parking space inside the pantheon. Sometimes the victory is simply continuing to create while trends, labels and entire formats appear and disappear around you.
That makes the song bigger than Guided by Voices.
It could belong to a band, a friendship, a marriage, a company or anyone who has remained standing long enough to surprise the people who assumed they would eventually go away.
Guided by Voices has never treated creativity as a limited natural resource. The band keeps writing, recording and releasing music with the apparent belief that songs are supposed to escape into the world—not spend five years trapped inside a planning meeting.
Forty-four albums later, they may have a point.
Listen to “We Outlast Them All”