ELI GOOD

Bride of the Bull

(Feast or Famine)

Bride of the Bull opens quietly with the mechanical sounds of a factory assembly line, before the drums and acoustic guitar explode with the fervor of a bashful storyteller suddenly inspired by a glance across a campfire to tell his or her tale. Eli Good's second album is filled with such moments of ingenuous epiphany.

Good's lyrics reflect personal struggle, transition, and change in that opening song, "From Air to Obscurity": "It felt like a miss, and it took wasted jets to unfold.... Now I'm breaking the best of my bones." The album is evocative of a western landscape — of expansive possibility — as if Good himself is finally wide open and accepting his own evolution. With help from Scott Amendola on drums and Carla Kihlstedt on violin, Bride proves to be a layered, complex work. Though the album is at its strongest when Good displays his gifts as a rock songwriter and musician, three experimental instrumentals reveal a musician willing to test his talent by pushing himself beyond the confines of genre and convention. Although those tracks are not always seamlessly integrated into a cohesive whole, one can imagine from the album's trajectory that Good will only continue to get better. (Jenny Miyasaki)

GARRETT PIERCE

Like a Moth

(Crossbill)

Garrett Pierce's debut attests to the old adage that less is more. Like a Moth becomes both haunting and heartbreaking when Pierce's minimalist arrangements give way to his stunningly poetic lyrics: "For inside we're exploding / My love is a weapon you're avoiding." With help from Jolie Holland, Matt Bauer, and Safa Shokrai, Moth is less a folk album and more a soundtrack to one of those philosophical late nights in a candlelit jazz club after two or five cocktails. (Miyasaki)

GARRETT PIERCE

Sat/18, 9 p.m.

Great American Music Hall

859 O'Farrell, SF. $13–$15

(415) 885-0750