Constant Hitmaker

We Say...

Review by Alex Naidus

Kurt Vile's Constant Hitmaker has all the telltale signs of a bedroom-pop album: super-fake, tinny percussion, amateurish production technique and whispery, "don't wake up the roommates" vocals. Lo-fi, do-it-yourself indie rock has been around for years, but the advent of hyper-simple recording software has made it so someone like Vile, who's twiddling with a four-track or Garageband, can only stand out one way: with great songs. Luckily, Hitmaker has ones like "Breathin' Out" — three minutes of rinky-dink drum machine, grain-silo reverb and an undeniable, see-sawing, mega-catchy melody. It's a joyous, buoyant guitar-pop song, played with charm and quirkily produced. There are wacky levels of delay on the guitar, like Vile was going for Roy Orbison but went too far and broke the knob off entirely.

Hitmaker is full of simple gems like "Breathin' Out." Relying mostly on guitar, vocals and drum machine (primitive-Casio keyboards are sometimes used for added effect), Vile's best songs play like underwater versions of classic rock staples. "Freeway" is just a few chords, an excited, chirpy vocal melody and a looped, loping drum-bounce. The back half of the album lingers in at-home, D.I.Y. sound experiments and a couple of slower, muddy folk songs. The collage of sounds is certainly affecting — the bubbling ambience and ethereal twinkling creates a unique, eerie world — but Vile can't help including the sprightly, almost-cute "Deep Sea" into the album's final third. As firmly as he's planted one foot in the world of the knob twiddler, Vile has impressively established himself as something more: a great songwriter.