Audio By Carbonatix
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On his seventh full-length, indie-rock nice guy John Vanderslice
switches labels from longtime home at Barsuk to the Austin-based
Secretly Canadian imprint Dead Oceans, presumably to avoid complacency.
But when has Vanderslice phoned in anything? Although these dozen songs
impose a new, accelerated-tempo brevity, the cumulative effect is still
very much a Vanderslice record.
Romanian Names contains the requisite harmonic warmth,
adventurous hooks and halfway-private lyrics evincing irony and
introspection. Kept in check by regular producer Scott Solter,
Vanderslice makes room for tenderly arty aural shimmers and other nice
touches, both decorative and functional. Elegantly dissonant piano
accents in the chorus of “Fetal Horses” accord with the mid-’70s-era
Steely Dan changes of “Carina Constellation,” just as the heartbeat of
“Forest Knolls” sets up the tick-tocking lope of “Summer Stock.” And,
theme-wise, the album offers suggestions of ruined relationships. A
certain wounded vindictiveness skitters under the pop sheen of “C &
O Canal,” on whose banks the singer and an erstwhile beloved parted
ways. After the breakup, he reports, “I tracked down your friend and
won her heart over slowly/Then I walked away/Hope it gets back to you
someday/La la la la la la.” By contrast, the poignant empathy
Vanderslice once summoned for the doomed pet bunny of Pixel
Revolt‘s “Angela” gets transferred here to a young gymnast in the
stripped-down title track. And in the beautiful, confidently rueful
“Too Much Time,” he points out that “freedom is overrated.”
Ah, is that why he changed labels?
