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Childish Prodigy is split between drunken caterwauling and quiet hangover-recovery sessions, and both sides of the spectrum are fantastic.
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He for sure knows enough that this sound lives and dies by its honesty, and that Childish Prodigy is just that, just an honest album, the best he could have made now, the best of its kind for a long long time. More please!
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The tracks with fuller arrangements are the more interesting and surprising tracks here, and they suggest Vile would do well to seek out other strong personalities to write and record with.
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It can seem unfocussed on occasion, but that rush to cram in influences from disparate sources settles into a pleasing hodge-podge in the second half of this album.
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The music is what stands out. Vile has no problem bringing any of his talents across--steady-handed, Appalachian-inflected psychfolk reels, doe-eyed wisecracker vocalese.
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Kurt Vile: 50% Velvet Underground; 50% The Jesus And Mary Chain. Childish Prodigy: 50% Velvet Underground & Nico; 50% Darklands.
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Fans of whiskey-drenched, feedback-fuddled blues-rock, form an orderly line.
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Vile certainly has the talent and ability to churn out tunes, and with a little focus and editing his best batch is most likely ahead of him.
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Vile seems to find his best inspiration in the album's valleys rather than its peaks.
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Q MagazineLyrics are of a cut-and-paste nature and largely unintelligible, yet sonically speaking there are layers at work here that deserves to be revisisted. [Nov 2009, p.114]
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Vile’s second full-length is notable for accomplishing a difficult feat: balancing a willful lack of self-control with a disciplined, oddly ascetic compositional approach.
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Throughout, a messy æsthetic attempts to cover up pop sympathies--or simply proves that dissonance and sweetness needn't be kept in their separate corners.
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With Childish Prodigy, his debut for indie-juggernaut Matador, Kurt Vile stretches and pulls the increasingly annoying “lo-fi” tag into interesting new shapes, distancing himself from his Woodsist-kin.
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UncutUnexpectedly, it's all pretty exciting. negotiate the scree, and the songs demand repeating. [Dec 2009, p.121]
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Under The RadarProdigy is packed to the gills with indelible hooks and insidious melodies. [Fall 2009, p.60]