When Kurt Vile first landed on the scene early last year, you got the feeling that he could write songs by the dozen. In October, Matador unveiled Childish Prodigy, the Philly psych-folker's first full-length for the label. It sounded like Vile had left behind bedroom music for classic rock brawn, his backing band the Violators dialed into every curvy riff and delay-clipped freakout he could muster. Childish Prodigy was more direct than anything he had done up until that point, but it also captured growth you could hear and offered glimpses of a songwriter with his best still in front of him. Eight months later comes the Square Shells EP, a release Vile and Matador are calling a "stepping stone" to bridge the gap between Childish Prodigy and the next LP. But with seven beautifully sequenced songs in 27 minutes, it's more substantial than your traditional stopgap, with more to explore.
Vile has a gift for finding just the right textures for his songs. At his best, every layer of sound is sumptuous in its own way. This holds true whether he's fingerpicking or just wandering around the neck of his guitar, and whether with a full band or alone with just a drum machine. At his worst, songs can get lost in too much gauze and too many effects, but Vile doesn't make that mistake this time out. On opener "Ocean City", his vocals are clear and his strumming is as playful as the melody is light, and the result is one of the cleanest songs he's put to tape. Elsewhere, Vile goes it alone along more familiar routes and demonstrates his way with immersive mood. "Invisibility: Nonexistent" is a particularly strong example, a seven-minute drone-driven piece with a repeating maze of lazy drum machine and distant guitar work.
That track's lonesome feeling bleeds into all of Square Shells, be it by way of instrumental hymns "Losing Momentum (For Jim Jarmusch)" and "The Finder", or the fingerpicked echoes of "I Wanted Everything". It's a satisfying EP that leaves open the question of where Vile's music might go next. Will he work more in the folk lane and away from FM radio licks? Will he go it alone or will the Violators be at his side? On "I Know I Got Religion", he croons over caramelized strums, "Now I stopped using picks, nothing between me and my guitar/ Now I'm strumming away, every day/ When I feel blue, I write a strummer for you." We'll see how this one ends.
