Tanner Ransford - Delinquent
(Self-Released 2016)
Each warbly guitar note smeared across Delinquent's college-ruled surface is a stubby pencil's trail left in the margins of pre-calculus homework. The debut EP by Spokane, Washington's Tanner Ransford is the spirit of slacker-rock at its most accurately exemplified, composed of half-finished song sketches, the terror of looming responsibility and an unshakable sense of underdog lovability. Borrowing equally from lo-fi motifs past and present, Ransford crafts delicate song structures from the bendy tentacles of Built To Spill riffage glued together with gloomy, amorphous guitar tones that could easily be employed by Alex G. The two sounds are blended most seamlessly on "I Fell Down", dotting a textureless void of distant, reverby fingerpicking with tinny shards of acoustic guitar.
There's a surprising diversity of vocal timbre on display here, ranging from a nasally and shockingly precise Isaac Brock impersonation on "Reperfect" to the coarse, punk delivery on "Ridicules/Fears" that lies somewhere between Wavves and Cloud Nothings on the fuzz-punk spectrum. Delinquent is a perfect summation of adolescence - artistic idol-worship, existential dread and a DIY ethos. Whether you're in high school or not, Ransford's music acts equally as the voice of a fellow traveler through your teenage years as it does an honest peek back in time.
