Kurt Vile - Philadelphia’s been good to me Review
Kurt Vile’s Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me is his tenth studio album since 2008, and the stripped back, warm familiarity greets long term fans like an old friend with some sad news.
The album is less synth driven and further away from the mild psychedelia on his other more recent records like Watch My Moves or Bottle It In. Instead, or maybe just, after those, we are given a back to basics return to the slow, soft, laid back, wandering, melting arpeggios and licks that make the core of Vile’s style. Vocally, it’s less rhythmic and more melodic, but still filled with the characteristic breaks into near spoken word delivered like a late night radio host.
The general feel chimes true to the album’s place and purpose, like much of his work it was made at home in his own studio. The lyrics are as day to day, honest and unapologetically, self awaredly simple as ever. As the title suggests, the songs feature content and quietly joyful odes to his home town, cut through with equally wistful reflections on his career, with a downbeat and understated tone that contributes to an overall nostalgia that is just shy of melancholy. This is what we expect from Kurt Vile, and while it might not be fresh and experimental, it’s seasoned and matured.
All of this makes perfect sense, when we note with dismay that Vile has said, “This is my ‘bringing it all back home to Philly’ album… I’m treating it like my last. I put everything into it.” The reminiscence shines through, on ‘99BPM,’ with the lyrics “I seen you playing in your first band/ that was my favourite band… it was 2012/ but it felt like 2014,” which ironically and simultaneously bend time while giving us a throw back to the dry absurdity in much of his writing. The finality seems to be confirmed on ‘99th song’ where he states, “This is the 99th track on my red looper, think I’ve played my piano into a stupour…but it appears to be my last move… the last track that’s possible before the software explodes.”
Despite this though, the album doesn’t wallow, and maintains the unique blend of hopeful, happy go lucky stoicism grounded in strongly felt humanity that has come to be the personality which permeates his music. With that, we might take solace in the ambiguity of his statement, he might be treating it like its his last album, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is his last album, or the last we’ll hear from him, and with anthemic tracks like the lead single, “Chance To Bleed,” we are left with the firm impression that this is an artist still very much in their prime and still delivering and an album takes its place among the best in a prolific career.