Childish Prodigy
~ Release group by Kurt Vile
Album
Relationships
| associated singles/EPs: | Overnite Religion |
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| part of: | Scott Cudmore: Top Ten Albums of 2009 (number: 5) (order: 5) Mario Cotto’s Top 10 Albums of 2009 (number: 9) (order: 9) |
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| Discogs: | https://www.discogs.com/master/221853 [info] |
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| reviews: | https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/r58c [info] |
| Wikidata: | Q5097993 [info] |
CritiqueBrainz Reviews
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American underground rock has long enjoyed a tradition of taking the discarded genres and styles of previous generations and re-contextualising them, so the familiar reference points are once again fresh and new: think of Dinosaur Jr and Meat Puppets retooling country and classic-rock references for an audience raised on hardcore-punk. Kurt Vile, lead guitarist for Philadelphian indie-rockers The War on Drugs, continued this tradition with two solo albums - Constant Hitmaker and God is Saying This to You - released in 2008 on bafflingly obscure record labels.
Despite their low profiles, these records won a modest blog-buzz for their hazy, personal take on the classic singer-songwriter paradigm. Recorded alone on rudimentary home-recording equipment, and aided by primitive FX and reverb-drenched vocals, Vile's tunes channelled such masters of rock songcraft as Neil Young and Bob Dylan, though Vile's idiosyncratic production approach - with a heavy lo-fi aesthetic, revelling in distortion and analogue crackle - made the sound his own.
Childish Prodigy, his third full-length, is his first for Matador Records and therefore his first widely-available release. Vile marks this step into the relative big league by inviting his touring band, The Violators, into the studio with him for a couple of tracks, breaking up the hushed and intimate vibe of the previous albums with a ragged Crazy Horse stomp (opener Hunchback) and frayed charm (the lackadaisical Monkey). In such moments, Childish Prodigy feels like some obscure 70s rock LP discovered by chance in a charity shop, an ambiance Vile no doubt aimed for. Freak Train, which closes the album's first side, captures this vibe perfectly, its chugging seven-minute guitar 'n' sax rock-out sounding like an indie-rock Born to Run.
Vile's solo recordings, meanwhile, continue to impress. Dead Alive - which sounds like Thurston Moore singing The Rolling Stones' Play with Fire - is mesmerising, with a brooding menace; similarly, the aching and pretty Heart Attack is given an electrified edge by Vile's bluesy holler, sounding like Dylan in caustic, chiding Like a Rolling Stone mode.
His roots might be easy to trace, but Childish Prodigy is more than the product of a tasteful record collection.
