"John Vanderslice is quickly proving himself to be one of the best songwriters to come around in a long time. Quietly pursuing a style that is as ambitiously literary as it is sonically multi-textural, he kills on both counts. Each listen offers more on every level, opening up wider and wider until the listener feels as if she could walk into this record, and live there, and never be bored...

Pixel Revolt is John Vanderslice's fifth full-length and marks a maturity and self-assuredness unheard from him until this moment. His past work was good, very good at times, but Pixel Revolt raises his artistry to another level. It's a moment in music when you realize that this person has just made a record that is Important. Not in a Change-the-Course way, but in that way where 20 years from now some kid who got the record from his cool aunt decides to start a band and name checks John Vanderslice. And then the next up-and-coming young musician does. And pretty soon it's as if no one ever did anything but listen to John Vanderslice (ask Burt Bacharach about this). Pixel Revolt has that intensity that starts small, well-meaning, polite rock 'n' roll cults.

Pixel Revolt is cinematic in the slow-paced, deliberate character-study way of such great films as Paris, Texas and Magnolia. The instrumentation means something, but you have give it the proper time to reveal itself. A violin enters and leaves and it's not until the 10th listen that you understand it symbolizes a feeling. All of this, and there's not a moment that is pretentious, cleverly judgmental, or coy...

With a record this good, the only question to ask is whatever will John Vanderslice do next?"  (PopMatters)

"Assuming a variety of characters, Vanderslice comes across as a post-modern Randy Newman... Catastrophically pretty, this is music of unrequited yearning; the songs are so delicate that the mere suggestion of error might produce collapse. Floating innuendo and vague memories merge with guitars and string arrangements until each song collects just enough force to disrupt itself."  (Dallas Observer)

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