Birdseed Shirt
What Delicate Recordings
By Ben Grad
“Turn to Sand,” the first track from Deleted Scenes' Birdseed
Shirt, is the best track on their new album. By itself, it's enough to make a listener
very very eager to see their Star Bar show tonight.
The Washington, DC-based band plays a (on first listen) airy
pop sound, almost inconsequential in its ability to pull the reader's
attention. You may find your head
bobbing to the first track from Birdseed Shirt, but your attention won't
fully engage with the song until about two minutes into the four minute
track. It's front man Dan Sheuerman's
voice that really starts bringing you into the song, quietly switching from a
whispered, slightly slurred verse into “Turn to Sand”'s chorus, sung slightly
louder than the organ's calliope swirl:
“Life starts leaving,
Life starts leaving,
I can't break and I can't throw it away”
Birdseed Shirt is divided between these lighter
organ/piano focused pieces, and heavier rock tracks – the sort of songs that
devolve into a mass of carefully orchestrated dissonance about 30 seconds
before a given track ends. Throughout,
Sheuerman (backed up by a humming vocal chorus from his bandmates), engages
listeners with lilting, whispered lyrics, constantly turning back to an
existential exploration of living and aging.
Deleted Scenes delivers a sound reminiscent of Vampire Weekend in
youthful intensity of expression, but with a decidedly un-pop message.
Deleted Scenes play tonight's free Pine Magazine show at Star Bar with The Wild, Abby GoGo, Tres Bien, Book of Colors and DJ C_Lark.
