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PIXEL REVOLT
BARSUK
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San Francisco storyteller John Vanderslice tapped his political ire following George W.’s reelection as a backdrop to the lyrical fiction on a batch of songs here, such as "Plymouth Rock," about one soldier’s fate in Iraq. But good-old-fashioned heartache from a breakup shifted him in a more personal direction on a number of others on this, his fifth full-length in as many years. Though he’s always been an indie songwriter’s songwriter, Vanderslice — with help from co-lyricist John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats — has taken even greater care to detail his film shorts in the confines of fragile pop songs proportioned in Spartan arrangements. Simple acoustic guitar, piano, and drums are softly shaded with mellotron, vibraphone, tape manipulations, and Hammond B3. The arrangements are certainly less crowded than his last concept album — Death of an American Four Tracker — but no less engaging. John Vanderslice + Portastatic | Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge | Oct 16 | 617.864.EAST
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