Wakin On A Pretty Daze

COLOUR: Yellow   EXTRAS: 10th Anniversary

Beginning with the nine-plus-minute "Wakin on a Pretty Day," Wakin On A Pretty Daze immediately takes the mantle from its predecessor, Smoke Ring For My Halo by offering up wistful interplay between acoustic and electric guitar tones, Vile's dour mumbled vocals, and an overall emotional sense caught somewhere between the hope and promise of youth and the exhaustion of everyday life.

Much like his former/sometimes band the War on Drugs, there's an undercurrent of working-class rock à la Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen here. However, with the spaced-out vaporous jams of Wakin on a Pretty Daze, it becomes clear that Kurt Vile isn't aiming to ape or even update the canon of classic guitar-based songwriters, but is very much his generation's chapter of the evolution of rock.