Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo (Matador)Melodic aptitude combined with the kind of slight incoherence encountered from a favourite maverick uncle half way through a boozy wedding reception is Kurt Vile’s stock in trade and he does it with much aplomb. This picks up where 2010’s Childish Prodigy left off for the most part. If anything this is a little more straightforward and traditional than the spaciest parts of Prodigy and some elements could even be called pretty, not least ‘Runners Up’ and ‘Jesus Fever’. Somehow Vile manages to put a new slant on the same “down-home” schtick that has sustained American songwriting for a century, and for this he should be applauded.
