Vetiver – Up On High (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/48 kHz | Time – 41:32 minutes | 435 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © LOOSE
Vetiver is the long-running stage and recording name of San Francisco’s Andy Cabic. ‘Up On High’ is his seventh studio album and the first since 2015. Vetiver has toured around the world on headline tours and supporting artists that include Wilco, The Shins, Fleet Foxes, Beach House, Bob Weir & Phil Lesh, and Vashti Bunyan. Vetiver craft nuanced, understated songs that reward careful listening, building a rich duality; a space where sunshine is only a chord away from melancholy, an introspective lyric underlies an extroverted chorus and subtlety tries to be outgoing in an effort to connect the dots of life’s ellipsis. ‘Up On High’ was recorded with longtime collaborator Thom Monahan (Neko Case, Bedouine, Fruit Bats, The Donkeys, Peter Bjorn and John, Beachwood Sparks, Little Joy). Instrumentation comes from an all-world cast that includes Eric Johnson (Fruit Bats, EDJ), Gabriel Noel (Kendrick Lamar, Father John Misty, Tyler the Creator), Dan Iead (Kevin Morby, Cass McCombs), Josh Adams (Bedouine, Wild Nothing), and Tim Ramsey (Fruit Bats, Little Wings).
Singer/songwriter Andy Cabic’s output as Vetiver underwent many shifts as it outlived the freak folk scene it grew adjacently out of and moved calmly and steadily through the end of the aughts. The project stayed active but slowed down significantly, touring less and releasing new albums at a rate of every four years. 2015’s Perfect Strangers saw Cabic lacing his rootsy folk rock songs with subtle electronic touches and layering the production. Up on High returns to more spacious songwriting and a far more direct reading of Cabic’s gentle but mature perspectives. The ten songs that comprise Up on High are open and spare, with Cabic’s usually hushed vocals higher in the mix and all the yacht rock trappings of recent albums dialed way back. The album opens with “The Living End,” a slowly ambling folk rocker. Understated playing and the subtle interaction of simplistic parts give the song a classic feeling, not unlike the more revelatory moments of Neil Young and Tom Petty. Spindly guitar leads interlock for a moment, allowing for a winking nod to the Grateful Dead. Much of the album occupies this space, with highlights like “To Who Knows Where” and “Wanted, Never Asked” feeling airy and mellow without losing artistic drive. Cabic entertains different muses throughout the course of Up on High. “Hold Tight” is built on a friendly groove, with the same breezy, streetwise energy of Jackson Browne or One Trick Pony-era Paul Simon. Elsewhere, the upbeat jangle of “Swaying” meshes early R.E.M. with Cabic’s eternal twilight songwriting style. Making more space in the arrangements serves the songs far better than the experiments with instrumentation and density that cluttered moments of the albums directly preceding Up on High. It’s a clear and focused return to the peaks the band found in the mid-2000s, and as enjoyable a listen as the best of their work. ~ Fred Thomas
Tracklist:
1. The Living End (4:48)
2. To Who Knows Where (3:20)
3. Swaying (3:18)
4. All We Could Want (4:38)
5. Hold Tight (4:03)
6. Wanted, Never Asked (3:42)
7. A Door Shuts Quick (4:17)
8. Filigree (1:13)
9. Up On High (5:45)
10. Lost (In Your Eyes) (4:09)
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