In Brief

* * * Vic Chesnutt, “West of Rome,” Texas Hotel. The Georgia oddball’s idiosyncrasies have been slightly reined in on his second album, but even with tasteful small-band settings (R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe produced again) and a sharper songwriting focus, Chesnutt is an acquired taste. A cynical innocent, he’s alternately hilarious and haunting, malevolent and whimsical, and his strangled twang puts him up there with Cohen, Waits and Prine in the eccentric singers’ hall of fame. Chesnutt appears at McCabe’s on Saturday.