Deleted Scenes, Birdseed Shirt

You can’t force yourself to like somebody; anybody who’s been through middle school knows that sad little truth. Even if you’re talking with somebody who’s got all the same interests as you, somebody who’s got the same background, somebody who likes the same things, there’s no magic button you can press to instantly make the two of you friends. Sometimes you do get there, sure, but not just because of your similarities. That’s just not how it works.

And that pretty much sums up how I feel about Deleted Scenes’ Birdseed Shirt. I know, deep-down, that I should freaking love these guys, right off the bat, and yet, it’s been a bit of a struggle. Which is weird, because they hit all the right notes most of the way through Shirt. There’re hints of the New Pornographers here, some seriously Modest Mouse-esque phrasing right off to that side, a bit that sounds like a less-cerebral Dismemberment Plan, vocals that come off like Band of Horses, and even a murky, seemingly out-of-place of near-trip-hop that sports a cool, crunchy, Soul Coughing-ish bass stomp. The band veers back and forth between styles like a speeding drunk swerving across four lanes of traffic.

It’s the scattershot aspect of the Deleted Scenes that makes Birdseed Shirt a hard album to love, really. The band apparently forcibly recruited reclusive producer/songwriter L. Skell to help out with the record, citing his one album as The Rude Staircase as an overlooked classic, and I have to wonder if maybe Skell’s the reason things are so all-over-the-place. The band lurches from the breezy, swaying pop of “Take My Life” to the aforementioned trip-hop-ness of “Mortal Sin” to the shambling, WTF?-inducing backwoods gospel raveup of “Got God,” all in the span of about ten minutes, and while each song’s pretty cool on its own, they could very well have come off of totally different albums.

Listening to the album for the fourth and fifth times, I catch myself thinking, “oh, yeah — I remember that song now, that was a good one.” Except that I can’t remember it in context, staring at the track listing, because it feels like it doesn’t really fit there, y’know? I like all the pieces, just not necessarily together.

At their best, the Deleted Scenes mine the indie-pop thing, as on opening track “Turn to Sand,” which staggers and stutters coyly ’til it suddenly clicks right into place with an awesome rippling guitar line and back-and-forth melody, or the end of “Deacons,” which is Jeff Mangum dragged back down to our reality, or “Ithaca” and “Fake IDs,” both of which sway hypnotically like Isaac Brock covering Death Cab For Cutie.

When the band gets going, there’s a loose, half-loaded messiness to it that brings to mind (favorably) the Grifters in its constant teetering on the edge of chaos. The Modest Mouse-isms further that feeling, too, but Scheuerman and bandmates Matt Dowling, Chris Scheffey, and Brian Hospital (all of whom play too many damn instruments to list out here) do it with their feet still firmly planted on the ground, like they know exactly what they’re doing. Stack the indie-pop-ish tracks together and leave the oddball stuff for a B-sides comp, and you’d have one damn impressive EP.