[rating=4.00]
Kurt Vile has put together a release worthy of an early candidate for Album of the Year with Smoke Ring For My Halo. By including his touring band, The Violaters, here Vile has upped the sound quality and density, forgoing the low-fi aesthetic that had somewhat muddied his previous albums by giving them a little too much of a DIY-feel. This is an album that can be loudly played on a stereo system just as well as it can through earbuds, which hasn’t always been the case with Vile’s output. While the audiophile superiority is much appreciated, it does not come at the expense of the lyrics and songcraft.
Vile is at his stream-of-consciousness best, offering forth eleven cryptic and murky narratives about life’s hardships and ambiguities all sung in a distinct, low guttural murmur. “Sometimes I’m stuck and then I think I can unglue it”, Vile sings over a classic rock groove on “Puppet For The Man”, as he laments over the dullness of daily life. Vile addresses the traveling musician in “On Tour”, warning him or her of the various critics and hangers on waiting to step in and grab a piece of the action: “Watch out for this one/They’ll pump you full of lead for turning your head wrong”, he sings over a laconic acoustic strum that mirrors the song’s sleepy protagonist. “I don’t wanna work/But I don’t wanna sit around all day frowning” is one of the many quandaries Vile faces in “Peeping Tomboy”, a gorgeously crafted ballad that sounds like a golden lost Replacements demo. “Jesus Fever” and “In My Time” are the album’s two most uplifting tracks, cousins in chord progression and rhythm that beg to be hits on the College Radio charts, as their sunny dispositions mask the weary resignation of Vile’s self-intake. In “Ghost World”, the album’s penultimate track, Vile ties all the loose ends together and summarizes his general ethos of malaise. “When I’m driving I find I’m dreaming/Jammin’ tunes and drifting/There’s just some certain times I wanna pull up and open up and stay/Raindrops might fall on my head sometimes/But I don’t pay ‘em any mind/Christ was here/You just missed him/Now I’m out going down 2nd”.
It’s a rambling and arcane, yet sensible way of trying to understand one’s place in the world. So much goes on each day: people are born and people die, people get married, people get divorced, soldiers come home while others ship out to war. It takes a lot to keep up with the world today and it is easy to become immune and numb to the totality of it all. What do you do to keep balance? Well, if you’re Kurt Vile or a like-minded troubadour, singing songs and strumming on your guitar is sometimes the simplest answer.
