Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: Steve Gunn is a sandy-haired mop top with raccoon eyes who can play the guitar just like ringing a bell. Perched somewhere between Television’s Richard Lloyd and Jerry Garcia, Gunn is adept in the dark arts of arpeggio, clustered overtone and the kind of modal chording arabesques that make Western stoners feel like Sufi mystics for the space of an album side.
Straight out of Drexel Hill, Gunn established a beachhead in Brooklyn more than a decade ago, where he’s been releasing pleasantly complicated albums of effortless art rock since at least 2007. And with the celebrated release last month of Eyes on the Lines on the vaunted indie-rock label Matador, he’s having something of a moment.
Saturday night, Gunn was in town for a respectably attended homecoming show at Union Transfer. Backed by the Outliners, his crack three-piece band, Gunn motorvated through a baker’s dozen of jammy folk-rock nuggets with pristine elan and carefully modulated grace. MORE