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The June release of Vetiver's fifth album The Errant Charm can
hardly be coincidental. This is an album purpose-built for, and much
enhanced by, summer listening: to be absolutely precise: about 6pm, as
the sun starts to dip slightly and a quiet melancholy descends. You
probably feel you already know exactly what it sounds like, and you
wouldn't be far wrong. The Errant Charm is a piece of woozy, low-key
Californiana, albeit informed by British janglers like The La's
and by a shoegazey approach to production. On the chirpy,
organ-driven Can't You Tell, Andy Cabic even sings about the bright
blue sky and letting the sun warm its way to him. In fact, this is a
rare moment of lyrical clarity: so submerged are Cabic's vocals
beneath washes of guitars and keyboards throughout the album that they
are often a felt presence rather than the focus. It takes a little
straining to hear the ten rather conventional, well-made songs lurking
beneath the haze.
The San Francisco band has gone through several line-up changes
over the years, but it is chiefly Cabic's vehicle, and The Errant
Charm was built from scraps and ideas he took into the studio with
producer and long-time collaborator Thom Monaghan. The result is an
album that puts atmosphere first, establishing its tone of blissed-out
mellowness from opener It's Beyond Me onwards. This is followed by
the warmly immersive acoustic strumming of Worse For Wear, which ends
with Cabic observing that “all happiness is sad”, which rather sums up
the album's mixture of sunshine and pathos.
This mood is more or less maintained throughout: the biggest
departure comes with Ride Ride Ride, a chugging glam rock boogie
complete with guitar solo and backing vocals. It's by-the-numbers
stuff, but no less fun for it, and Cabic's vocal, though still hardly
extrovert, actually takes on some colour here. He swiftly retreats
back into the mists, though, for Faint Praise (whose dreamy haze calls
to mind their sometime labelmates Beach House) and the swelling
country march of Soft Glass.
By having its most contemplative tracks at the start and end, the
album leaves an impression of being a largely downtempo affair. This
is deceptive: the middle section, recorded in a rockier full-band
setup, has plenty of spring in its step, driven along by tambourines
and drum machines (on Right Away), by jingle-jangle guitars and
Fleetwood Mac-flavoured drums (on lead single Wonder Why). Fog
Emotion – whose title is another, even more concise summary of the
album – has an Bo Diddley/bossa nova beat overlaid with Johnny
Marr-ish flanged guitar, creating a kind of
post-punk-elevator-music bittersweetness.
Over seven years and five albums Vetiver have changed almost beyond
recognition from the band that used to open for “freak folk” merchants
like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. The Errant
Charm is far from a kooky album, nor indeed is it a particularly
original or arresting one, but as a soundtrack to sun-soaked
introspection it discharges its duties very respectably. Cabic and
Monaghan deliver an album of relaxed, low-definition loveliness, and
it's hard to begrudge them that.
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