album review: kurt vile, smoke ring for my halo
After Dunja challenged my musical sensibilities with Aa’s unique beats, she thought she’d give me a breather with something a little more in my comfort zone: namely, a boy with a break in his voice who plays the guitar.
Enter Kurt Vile‘s latest offering: Smoke Ring for my Halo.
Yes, Kurt Vile is his real name. You like him a little bit more now, don’t cha?
I haven’t listened to Vile’s previous three albums, but a quick search has revealed that critics consider Smoke Ring to be his most mellow, and many believe it to be his best.
Vile is commonly compared to John Mellencamp and Tom Petty, but seeing how my music knowledge of those two surmount to Jack and Diane and Free Falling, I’m dismissing it as crazy talk (I know it may not be, but for me it conjures up a lot of dancing to really lame cover bands in awful pubs at 3AM). Under influences on his MySpace page, Vile has listed Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. And okay, I know, pretty much every boy with a guitar will list Bob Dylan as an influence, but I can actually hear it in Vile. While he doesn’t have the genius lyrical sensibilities of Mitchell and Dylan, there is that earnest pared-down sound.
Smoke Ring is absolutely the album that you put on while you drink copious amounts of red wine and have those crazy long talks that last until 4 in the morning. The music is strangely equal measures haunting and comforting – like The National.
Standout on the albums for me include ‘Peeping Tom’ and ‘Puppet to the Man’. ‘Peeping Tom’ begins:
I don’t wanna change, but I don’t wanna stay the same
I don’t wanna go, but I’m runnin
I don’t wanna work, but I don’t wanna sit around
Maybe it’s because the lyrics are about the existentialism we indulge ourselves in throughout our twenties; we’ve come a way in figuring out who we are, but what we want is a little harder – we have a quarter-life crisis trying to avoid a mid-life crisis.
‘Puppet to the Man’ is also a strong track, perhaps because it holds the most difference. It definitely has a rockier edge. Which brings me to the one fault I have with the CD is that it takes quite a few listens to distinguish the songs apart from each other.
But in saying that, I’ve kept playing the CD, so the music is clearly compelling.
