Gig review: Kurt Vile and the Violators

LIKE his Matador Records label mate Ariel Pink, Kurt Vile is a prolific, respected lo-fi US underground figure and bloggers’ favourite who – with his fourth album Smoke Ring For My Halo – has been polished up and repackaged almost as if a “new” artist. (That is his real name by the way – he was hardly going to grow up to be an accountant was he?)

Where Pink re-imagines 1980s funk and pop, this Philadelphian takes the 1970s FM rock of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and stretches it out into elliptical cosmic jams awash with echo and self-doubt.

By effectively resetting the clock on his career and sharpening up his sound for wider consumption, Vile has raised some questions about his authenticity, but from where I was standing at Stereo on Tuesday night he looked like he meant every syllable and strum of his thick sonic stew, even if it did toe the thin line between absorbing and monotonously dirgy at times.

Evidently not much of a conversationalist – the few words he mumbled to the audience through his straggly Jesus hair were all but unintelligible – he let the music talk.

A solo acoustic opening set a heartfelt tone, before he strapped on an electric guitar and switched to stoner rock mode, assisted by his three-piece band The Violators.

The chugging Freak Train ended with a throbbing squall of noise that nobody onstage seemed sure how to cancel, but the more fragile Peeping Tomboy made for a spellbinding closer.

However, the lack of calls for an encore suggested Vile is yet to make the leap from an artist who intrigues to one who inspires passion.

MALCOLM JACK