Send "Kurt Vile " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 "On tour, Lord of the Flies. Aw, hey kids, what's a guuuii-taaaaar?" So begins the sharply titled "On Tour", a spacious, diary-like explosion nestled just a few minutes into Smoke Ring for My Halo, Kurt Vile's fourth and finest full-length to date. Strings buzz, strummed patterns double back on themselves and from up above it all, the Philadelphia-native showers everything with cosmic, harp-like harmonics. It's a song that's both monastic and vast all at once, the kind of curiously rich work that seems like it was crafted by forty longhairs instead of just one. But Vile has gone great lengths in answering his own question in recent years, finding a way to distill thousands of hours spent with classic American guitar music into one very singular and sublime vision. Whether he's channeling the energies of John Fahey or Tom Petty or even Bob Seger, Smoke Ring makes clear that the end result is his alone.But to listen to Kurt Vile is to hear him in conversation with himself: That can be said of his ultra-wry lyrical observations just as much as the elliptical, brick-by-brick architecture of his songwriting. In the past, though, Vile's words have been written off as mumbled, unintelligible, and listless-- a criticism made all the more reasonable given the crude recording techniques he employed. But 2009's Childish Prodigy, his Matador debut, found Vile wiping off some of the grimy, decidedly "lo-fi" film that had fenced off much of his work up until that point. (Additionally, he brought his sometime touring band, the Violators, into the studio to help fill out those songs that required more brawn. They also appear here.) It was a jump to the relative big leagues that, despite its cleaner approach, offered more in the way of promise than focus. That's not at all the case here. As hinted at by last year's Square Shells EP, a "stepping stone" to where we are now, the sonics and vocals have been spit-polished to shimmer-- every sonorous detail can now be heard in full, and Vile's voice has taken on a new, mountainous presence in the center of each song. The conversation's grown far more engaging. What we learn is that Kurt Vile has a lot to say. He can be quick, as on the strong-jawed, electric groove of "Puppet to the Man", when he opens, "I bet by now you probably think I'm a puppet to the man. Well I'll tell you right now, you best believe that I am." And he can yank your heart out, as he does a number of times here, perhaps most memorably amid the celestial fingerpicking of "Baby's Arms", when he tries convincing himself that, he'll "never ever, ever be alone." But he's actually always alone here. Vile's lonesome brand of melancholia is still communicated both plainly and unassumingly enough to be missed, but its that sense that he seems to be talking only to himself that lends these songs such magnetic pull. Between the two seismic chords of "Ghost Town" this album's bulldozing climax, Vile wonders aloud, "think I'll never leave my couch again, because when I'm out, I'm away in my mind. Christ was born, I was there. You know me, I'm around. I got friends, hey wait, where was I, well, I am trying." Although he stretches those last two or three notes, it doesn't feel like he's singing. We're eavesdropping on the most private of dialogs....full text |
| Bbc |
| The last few years have seen a certain upheaval in underground rock music, where artists releasing highly limited runs of what would appear to be obscure and obstinate records are not entirely cut off from the overground. It’s a phenomenon typified by acts as varied as Animal Collective, F***ed Up and Best Coast, and has been helped along by entities such as the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival and the Matador label. It is they who release this, the fourth album – or first studio album, in the literal sense of being recorded in actual studios – by Kurt Vile, who appears a decent bet to go from CD-Rs to CEOs in the near future. A native of Philadelphia, Kurt Vile calls upon various pals from the locale across Smoke Ring for My Halo’s 46-minute duration – Meg Baird of acclaimed acid-folk ensemble Espers sings backup on opening track Baby’s Arms (an appropriately woozy folk excursion itself), while harpist and sometime Thurston Moore collaborator Mary Lattimore plucks with gusto later on. Add his three-strong band, The Violators, into the equation and it becomes apparent that for all his home-recording loner-indie credentials, Kurt’s cohorts are essential to this album’s sound. A clear development from 2009’s Childish Prodigy, his Matador debut, the prevalence of barroom piano and Kurt’s own tarnished vocal bear comparison to the great and the good of ‘heartland rock’: Springsteen, Tom Petty or Bob Seger, say. Yet on ostensibly tuneful and stirring songs like Society Is My Friend, there’s a certain off-centre oddness that makes it clear Kurt Vile isn’t built for arenas. While bands are attaining genuine stardom while touting ‘rootsiness’ – Arcade Fire on his side of the Atlantic, Mumford & Sons on this one – Smoke Ring for My Halo is about the personal and private, not the big picture painted by those bands. Peeping Tomboy, another tricksy finger-picked folk number, trades in both romance and cynicism, and a punning title you could imagine The Hold Steady using. As it goes, their comfortable cult following might be a good indicator of what awaits Kurt Vile, if this album gets the attention and sales it deserves....full text |
| Thephoenix |
| It's weird to write about a guy who operates this close to the classic singer-songwriter template and not even consider the lyrics. The acoustic-strumming, banjo-picking Kurt Vile chooses fine words, and he certainly puts them in a specific order, but none of them have much to do with why his music works. Much of Smoke Ring for My Halo sounds like early Simon & Garfunkel with a concussion, but Vile's blurry psychedelic folk rock is more interested in atmosphere than in messages or wordplay. It's not quite ambient music for lo-fi vets, but neither does it try to penetrate Vile's trademark haze. His fourth LP in as many years offers up 11 more sluggish drones that are as transfixing as they are indistinct, and perfect for anybody who digs new-fangled folksy biz but can't handle beard 'n' banjo clown shows like the Mumford bros. Vile's voice, a high whine somewhere between Lou Reed and J Mascis (his current touring partner), just adds to the smoky backdrop. He's mastered the tuneful shrug, the song that sounds unfinished and tossed off but sticks fast to your brain and keeps revealing a depth you hadn't noticed....full text |
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