There's a bunch of clowns all over the USA, all around around the world, cluttering up the rock n' roll stage with studied talent and recycled tunes. Hobbyists and hacks with guitars, eager to churn out a limp performance to kill a night and earn a couple free drinks. And then there's Kurt Vile (the handle his mother gave him) out of Philadelphia. A wild-eyed, baby-faced long-hair who's spent the last 12 years climbing up the stage or setting up in the back of a bookstore to stand, hunched over and giving breathless crowds from 5 to 500+ a string of bona-fide HITS that transcend genre or some passing aesthetic ghetto. He's remained a step outside any scene that's tried to claim him. Whether performing solo or backed by a first class American rock band called the Violators, he's dextrous and confident on the neck of an acoustic or electric, both relaxed and full of life at the microphone.

2009 has already seen some landmark Vile releases... Great, immediate (mostly) bedroom recordings. These records introduced the world to Kurt's no-frills songwriting, his singular sense of melody and timing, and his innocent half-whispered/half-sung vocals. But killer as they are, those records were just a taste: a partial clearing of an endless back catalog to set the tone and bring the late partygoers up to speed.

Childish Prodigy is the complete ALBUM that KV's been keeping hidden up his plaid sleeve. He gives us nine absolutely realized cuts (most by hometown master-engineer Jeff Zeigler) with an appropriate level of fidelity that, in a just world, would find the same warm welcome on FM radio that he's received this year from those with their ears to the underground.

Tunes like "Hunchback" and "Inside Lookin' Out" show the absolute power the Violators hold. It’s Mike Zanghi dominating his thunder kit on the former, and Michael Johnson banging in a primitive caveman thud on the latter. These tracks dig in and drive hard like Crazy Horse truckin' along the Autobahn. Kurt's same steady hands guide the pretty-sounding and vulnerable route of "Overnite Religion" and "Blackberry Song”. The paranoid monologue of "Dead Alive", and the tense, though sunny "Amplifier" should shame all the lightweight singer-songwriter types into pawning Lucille and patching things up with their fathers.

And then there's the fan-favorite "Freak Train". This one's got all the KV moves... A pounding and relentless rhythm (this time supplied by Roland 707), a web of electric-fingerpicking, chiming swells of feedback by Kurt and Adam Granduciel, and a boss sax solo coaxed from the lungs of Jesse Trbovich. It's a real propulsive romp through some mutant-filled regional rail network in Vile's mind.

Let the lazy scribes speculate on Kurt's influences. Bruce, Suicide, Neil, Spacemen, Patton, Velvets, dozens of under-sung loners with guitars, whoever. But KV doesn't so much borrow the moves of his elders as he does swallow them up and spit them back as if they were his all along. Listen to him lead the Violators through "Monkey" by the Dim Stars for proof. Each one of these tunes sounded classic the day it was committed to tape. Classic.

Rock music has a new hitmaker to deal with. Here he is, freaks, your Childish Prodigy.

--Richie Charles (testostertunes.blogspot.com)