Description
This is the fifth album in as many years from John Vanderslice. He continues to use the studio as a workshop and laboratory, allowing songs to flourish as the arrangements blossom. This time out kindred spirit John Darnielle assisted, as editor, co-writer and all around sympathetic aesthetic collaborator (Vanderslice also produced his last two
This is the fifth album in as many years from John Vanderslice. He continues to use the studio as a workshop and laboratory, allowing songs to flourish as the arrangements blossom. This time out kindred spirit John Darnielle assisted, as editor, co-writer and all around sympathetic aesthetic collaborator (Vanderslice also produced his last two Mountain Goats albums). Brilliantly arranged and played, the fourteen songs are filled with utterly mesmerizing moments, from the haunting chorus on "Plymouth Rock" to the strutting piano figure of "Peacocks in the Video Rain." Vanderslice knows the power of words, with his lyrics mixing narrative certainty with poetic mystery. His melodies can, by turns, underscore the emotional character of the words, and play off of them, expanding the magical possibilities exponentially. --David Greenberger
Album Description
Vanderslice's fifth solo album contains 14 tracks built on short stories efficient and evocative enough to be reminiscent of top-tier fiction writers, and sonically gorgeous enough that the casual fan can go several listens without noticing the lyrics. In addition to several delicate, dead-on autobiographical songs,"Pixel Revolt" is full of John's trademark fictional narrators: a soldier in "Plymouth Rock" who develops second thoughts about the liberation as he lies bleeding; the anti-government militant with shaken conviction and waning commitment in "Exodus Damage"; a sinister stalker or harmless admirer of a pop singer in "Peacocks In The Video Rain"; a western journalist on a conflicted visit to an Iraqi prostitute in "Trance Manual"; the possibly paranoid-schizophrenic, possibly razor-sharp cop of "Continuation", and others.
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