John Vanderslice: Cellar Door

It may be the sheer density of John Vanderslice's four albums that have kept them from vaulting to the same places as those made by his better-known friends, tourmates, and production clients. On his new Cellar Door, he packs musical and lyrical texture into sharp pop that's buffed to a polish usually reserved for less independent-minded releases. The simple explanation for the seeming incongruity: Vanderslice is a gear geek with unlimited recording time. His San Francisco studio Tiny Telephone–birthplace of great songs by Death Cab For Cutie, Spoon, Beulah, and others–brims with vintage analog equipment that remains at his disposal almost constantly. Vanderslice claims to have spent 420 hours there recording Cellar Door, ample time to immaculately construct its dozen songs. But impressive production means little without thoughtful and skilled songwriting, and when Vanderslice doesn't get too caught up in his oddly specific scenario-songs, his words can be eerie and affecting. Past works like Time Travel Is Lonely and The Life And Death Of An American Fourtracker leaned on lyrical concepts to thread them together, rendering them less enjoyable in individual pieces. Here, Vanderslice isn't wedded to a story, freeing him to pay tribute to influences as disparate as Percy Shelley ("Pale Horse") and Requiem For A Dream ("When It Hits My Blood"). In a couple of instances, the freedom flies too far: "Up Above The Sea" wraps a creepy story around music that could, with minor tweaking, sound perfect behind DMX, while "Heated Pool And Bar" hits its antiwar target a bit too squarely. For the most part, though, Cellar Door revels in Vanderslice's exceptional ability to combine mood and melody with exacting attention to detail.