Kurt Vile is not the first man to write pensive lyrics or a hypnotic riff — far from it. The troubadour is a concept that stretches back in the depths of history, before the Dylans of the world made rock ‘n’ roll the voice of generations.
But on Smoke Ring for My Halo, Vile pulls off a feat that few can master — he takes a set of songs built on the strums of guitar and plaintive prose and transforms them into something magical and enlivened.
Album opener “Baby’s Arms” is a stunning, four-minute foray into eddying, swirling instrumentals. After a few measures of guitar, Vile’s voice slices through the ambience like a knife as he sings, “There’s been but one true love / in my baby’s arms.”
The track evokes the feeling of looking at an old photograph, a wistful aura stirred by Vile’s unadorned vocals. It’s this very lack of unnecessary adornment that makes the album so effective. Instead of pummeling the listener with stimuli, Vile relies on the trance-like powers of his riffs, which glide gracefully underneath his voice.
Ultimately, the record is most successful in its ability to stir you, to make you alternately empathize with Vile’s weariness and embrace his wanderlust. These are songs for traveling, for contemplating, for feeling impossibly cool.
Kurt Vile may not have reinvented the wheel, but on Smoke Ring for My Halo, he shoved it in a novel direction.
