The solo entry from Adam Wiltzie -- best known as one-half of
Stars of the Lid -- comes under the nom de rock
the Dead Texan and exists as less of a song cycle than an imaginary movie score. Accompanied with a DVD of seven videos made by filmmaker Christina Vantzos only asserts this notion, but Wiltzie's guitar-based art is equally if not better suited to stand on its own. Beautiful, slumbering compositions get peculiar titles like "The 6 Million Dollar Sandwich" and "A Chronicle of Early Failures." If the lush, piano-flushed "La Ballade d'Alain Georges" is the finest of the instrumental tracks, Wiltzie's two intimate vocal pieces (the organ-bolstered "Glenn's Goo" and the ambient shoegazer-ish "The Struggle") are easily the disc's highlights. ~ John D. Luerssen