Vetiver - self-effaced?
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Vetiver's new record, __Thing of the Past__, is out on 13 May. Unlike the band's previous two albums, this one is not built around original material, but is a collection of cover versions.Perhaps fittingly (given this fact, and the album's title), it's a nostalgia-tinged collection, infused with gentle melancholia and a slight weariness. The majority of the songs are slow to mid-tempo, steady, acoustic-based - and arrangements are subtle, sometimes minimalistic tapestries, in which textures and moods are more important than drama and narrative.This is a well-recorded and produced collection. The instrumental performances (which are often extremely fine: never showy, accomplished in their restraint) are stylish and well-captured, and the production matches the performances and songs in terms of subtlety and lightness of touch.I have some difficulty, though, approaching __Thing of the Past__ as an album. In some ways, I'm more inclined to see it as a mix-tape - in which half of the interest is in the song choices, rather than the songs themselves. The spirit of the collection is not radically reinterpretative (like Tori Amos, say, in __Strange Little Girls__), so there is a certain difficulty in actually identifying __the point__ of it. The record is somehow bereft of a centre, of a unity. This manifests itself in obvious ways - say, the fact that the three consecutive tracks 'To Baby', 'Road To Ronderlin' and 'Lon Chaney' seem incongruously to have roots in a different genre, infused with 60s pop, rather than the folksy americana of the rest of the album. But - on a deeper level - the record feels as though it lacks a narrative. Listening to it, one would be hard-pressed to say what Vetiver were about, as a band.In this sense, perhaps, it's a very modest work - self-effacing. These covers seem respectful, reverent. Which perhaps contributes to this sense that one is listening to a personally-compiled mixtape.As a collection, then, it's rather interesting. But - from an album - I want something overarching. I want a journey. And this record fails to deliver anything of the kind. Despite repeated efforts, I've been unable to pin an identity upon it - and am unable to consider its songs as part of any larger whole. For this reason, I reluctantly consider it - despite sensitive performances and tasteful production - a failure.... And there __are__ some lovely details to enjoy: the brushed drums and shimmering clean guitars of 'I Must Be In A Good Place Now'; the crunchy blues of 'Blue Driver' ... But the fine detailing is let down by a lack of conceptual direction.A good many of these songs, in fact, would make welcome appearances on a 'shuffled' playlist. But, ultimately, I feel little attachment to them in their collected form.
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