Vetiver: The Errant Charm (SubPop)

 |   |  <1 min read

Vetiver: Fog Emotion
Vetiver: The Errant Charm (SubPop)

Although on the receiving end of polite but unimpressed reviews in some circles, there's no denying the quiet charm of this album which suggests last light in California and the sun glinting off the top of small waves which roll onto a warm beach as lovers are silhouetted at the water's edge.

Although they haven't entirely abandoned their former folk influences in favour of Brian Wilson circa '65 or the LA singer-songwriters of the early Seventies, there is certainly an evocation of that warm melancholy here.

There are hints of jangle pop (Hard to Break, Wonder Why) and a Latin shuffle on Fog Emotion (where the temperature drops), and Ride Ride Ride has light power pop groove which sounds like a duffed-up Eagles when they had their wheels rolling.

Faint Praise is that holy moment of reflection after the sun has set, the surfers are gone and singer Andy Cabis is sitting alone wondering where she is now.

So no boundaries are breached, no barriers are hurdled and although you have heard much of this before the overall mood is coherent and not unpleasant. Which is faint praise for an album which only resonates faintly.

Politely unimpressed then?

Like the sound of this? Then try this.


Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Various Artists: The World Needs Changing; Street Funk and Jazz Grooves 1967- 1976

Various Artists: The World Needs Changing; Street Funk and Jazz Grooves 1967- 1976

Although to some extent a companion volume to the fascinating Liberation Music collection of material from the Flying Dutchman label, this is very much a lesser cousin as the politics is tuned down... > Read more

Gomez: Five Men in a Hut (EMI)

Gomez: Five Men in a Hut (EMI)

No one reviewed this double disc when it came out late last year which is not surprising: although this British band picked up the coveted Mercury Award for their 1998 debut Bring It On they seem... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

The Jac: The Green Hour (Rattle Jazz)

The Jac: The Green Hour (Rattle Jazz)

There has always been the argument that you can't teach jazz in a school, it's an art form which can only be lean red on the bandstand. While that may be true to some extent, what is... > Read more

BEATLEMANIA IN '64: Good times and bad politics

BEATLEMANIA IN '64: Good times and bad politics

Some photographs are deafening. Consider the images of American kids screaming at the Beatles in late 1964. Even now, more than four decades later, those who remember the times or have seen the... > Read more