By Lauren Sloss | February 15th, 2013
Kurt Vile may have blown into my life with the gnarled raging guitar featured in his track “Hunchback,” but he’s managed to stick around for a while by virtue of a melodic, dreamy, and increasingly mature sound.
“Wakin On A Pretty Day,” the first track off his soon-to-be-released album Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze (yes, those names are slightly different), is a nine-plus minute cruise of a tune. Anchored by a mellow strumming guitar and Vile’s dulcet vocals, “Wakin” lulls you into a sunshiney trance, occasionally broken by the ringing tones of a big, bold electric guitar riff, subdued to meld into the fibers of the song. Vile’s rough edges may be mostly smoothed out, but his incredible guitar skills and rock-centric compositions still lend to his distinctive, Philly-bred sound.