8. Bottle It In / Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile's badassery knows no bounds.  "I park for free!" he exults during the chorus of "Loading Zones," the fantastic opener on Bottle It In.  Even when he runs errands, Vile is much cooler than you.

Get my shoppin' done, laundry too
Drop some dead weight, clean my hands of what I need to clean my hands of
And all for free by mayoral decree
All from zone to loading zone of my town, yeah

Like past efforts, Bottle It In is all vibes, a persona, a feeling, a way of living.  Blissed-out, chilled-out, suburban guitar wizardry.

A relentless search for the groove, Vile's run of superb records continues: the chill-inducing warmth of Smoke Ring for My Halo, the sprawling guitar manifestos of Wakin on a Pretty Daze, and the golden nocturnal tones of B'lieve I'm Going Down all filter into his latest effort, though he largely leaves behind any sense of thematic cohesion on his eighth studio album.  Clocking in at one hour and nineteen minutes, the record is easily the Philly native's most meandering to date; the tracks run the gamut from shimmering folk-rock to laid-back country to spacey psych workouts.  Unhurried and relaxed has always been his calling card, but this record finds new territory for his off-beat, non-chalant take on the ups and downs of life, family, and career.

One way of describing a vile record is to try and describe what his guitar is doing on each track.  Here, you have skittering, stop-and-go, joint acoustic/electric Vile ("Yeah Bones"), you have lush and languid Vile ("Hysteria"), you have pretty rolling from sunset to dawn Vile ("Bassackwards"), you have golden country ringing twang Vile ("Rollin with the Flow"), you have 90s alt-rock crunch Vile ("Check Baby"), you have winding, fingerpicking, feedback Vile ("Mutinies"), or reflective, slow-build, simple strum pattern turn into little squalls Vile ("Skinny Mini").  His distinctive but diverse style is still a driving force as he squeezes out disparate moods and finds new ways of communicating with a guitar in his hands.

The first side of the record is packed with the tightest or most accessible cuts, while the second side gives way to the strangest and darkest doodles of his career (see the title track and "Cold Was the Wind").  The album lynchpin may be track number four, "Bassackwards," a glorious, nearly ten-minute ode to the ineffable.  Though he cannot find the words in the moment, his lyrics are transportive and his guitar/keyboard immersive.  It is another Vile totem, beautiful and effortless, his hazy introspection capturing the elusive, another night stretched out until the sun is reborn.

Other highlights include the ebullient "One Trick Ponies" ("Loved them all through many a lifetime / Some are gone but some still strong / Some are weird as hell but we love'em / Some are one trick ponies but we embrace'em"), the Charlie Rich cover "Rollin with the Flow" ("Some might be callin' me a bum / But I'm still out there having fun / And Jesus loves me, yes, I know / So, I keep on rolling with the flow"), and the anthem to anxiety "Mutinies" ("The mutinies in my head keep staying / I take pills and pills to try and make'em go away / Small computer in my hand explodin' / I think things were way easier with a regular telephone").

Finding a unique voice and singular approach to playing the guitar is almost impossible to do.  Taking strains from 80s heartland rock, alt-rock, slacker rock, folk-rock, and country, Vile has long ago reached the status of a true original.  Bottle It In is just the latest example.