Scruffy longhair, peeling paint, wet cardboard, stoned drawls, powdery mortar, space forklift, dumping trumpets, classic rock in spring, drum machine, reverb on the vocal, picked guitar. That is Constant Hitmaker, Kurt Vile's first album, his new one, Childish Prodigy, is similar but”¦ more, y’know?First track ‘Hunchback’ has something of the knuckle drag about it, a swaggering cock-rocking cock-sure thing pummeling two chords, quite unlike the echo and slack atmosphere of his debut. On almost every second song here Kurt Vile and The Violators (his backing band, making their first full-length appearance) take on a more masculine approach than you might have expected from just hearing his debut album, but it’s essentially the same stuff. Whether it’s the presence of other musicians (especially a drummer), or a bigger budget (he moved from a smaller indie to Matador for Childish Prodigy), what we get here is a broader spectrum of sound. He’s basically upgraded from tinny radio speakers, and as a result there’s a lot more punch and power to what’s on offer. Getting on board the excellent ‘Freak Train’ is quite an experience, the 7 minute track has beds of distorted guitar and keyboard coiling slowly around like snakes, a drum machine set to ‘fast’ each hit catching the next one because of the echoing recording, it’s a pulsing (train-like in it’s repetition, natch) ride that gets a bunch of trumpet dumped into it’s last quarter or so, finishing in a disconcerting siren. Quite a surprising, but ultimately pleasing, direction, and it’s something that makes me curious to know what War On Drugs, a band that he’s a member of, sounds like ”“ beyond the vague ‘post-rockish’ tag I think I once read somewhere.But again, he hasn’t really changed that much, if we’re being honest. There’s still plenty of tracks like ‘Dead Alive’, noodling reverby guitar playing out into a static ambient atmosphere, and dumb intoxicated lyrics like "better take a breath in 'til you start sweatin' and make me a sweater". It’s quite charming for the most part, Vile’s voice has a classic indie rock quality (J. Mascis, mellow Frank Black) that’s able to pull off the free-association lyrics without sounding arrogant. But those lyrics and that delivery create a barrier sometimes, there’s potential for a shamanistic shambling persona, or a numbed-to-deal-with-the-pain approach, or something. But Vile stays routinely oblique and bemused, not really offering anything to grab a hold of, which is ultimately what might turn someone off of his music: not enough emotion. And I’m not saying I don’t like the way he sings, or the way the quiet numbers stumble around, but there’s a threshold, you can only take so much of your friends rambling on whilst high/drunk. But then maybe that’s my fault, if I got high or drunk and listened I might understand it a bit better. But but but but.I want to like it more than I do. It has all these cool aesthetic choices, vocals through a megaphone, ambient sections, slacker vibes, grainy electric guitar theatrics (‘Inside Looking Out’), off-the-cuff cool; but it’s not quite there for me. Kurt Vile is really cool, I’m just not sure if I truly like what he does yet. The good news is: if you haven’t heard Constant Hitmaker, Childish Prodigy suddenly becomes a very cool album that rocks out, goes all psychedelic and ambient, is catchy, and has some interesting things going on.Kurt Vile on MySpace