Private songwriting, sadly, typically takes the type of navel-gazing. Self-absorbed songwriting with a powerful autobiographical tilt is the dominant model. Listeners endure music cycles constructed across the writer sifting by way of the wreckage of their lives with a fine-tooth comb and discovering themselves wanting. We all know that many occasions this ends in a compelling listening expertise. We’re capable of join with the songwriter’s travails and the musical automobiles used for this activity show to be melodic or in any other case gripping. Music devotees may also acknowledge that such releases oftentimes quantity to little else however workout routines in ego or self-pity.  

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Vili V, nonetheless, doesn’t write songs like he’s taking his temperature. Common attain distinguishes his musical releases during the last 20 years plus. He units up an ongoing dialogue together with his viewers somewhat than merely performing. Vili V additionally pushes again in opposition to the stereotypical fixation on despair, heartache, and hopelessness that defines a lot of recent songwriting. His newest single “Tupelo Rhythm” from the forthcoming album In Daddy’s Arms Once more perpetuates his redemptive imaginative and prescient and delivers a life-affirming message with most soul.  

The Hamilton, Canada artist opens the monitor with raw-boned electrical guitar riffing and lays down a brisk tempo. He tempers the tempo, nonetheless, and by no means rushes the music. Vili V aligns himself with an extended custom of Canadian musical artists embracing the music of the American South with out ever smacking of pastiche. Scattered references all through the lyrics to geography, meals, and understated invocations of time-tested blues language by no means ring false. He has a agency grip on incorporating such callbacks into the material of his songwriting.   Regular drums swinging simply behind the beat give “Tupelo Rhythm” a traditional basis.

He drops rollicking piano into the association as effectively, particularly through the music’s second half. There’s no query that Vili V has an excellent voice for this type of materials. It has a dollop of grit, undoubted lung energy, and a convincing emotional vary.  

The manufacturing strikes an arresting stability between the devices and Vili V’s singing. Each aspect of the efficiency exudes heat and possesses the required snap to maintain you concerned. His songwriting construction doesn’t remake the songwriting wheel, removed from it, however it pops with the predictable inevitability that pays off at each flip. We’ve been right here earlier than, sure, however Vili V travels by way of acquainted territory with idiosyncratic model, style, and apparent intelligence.   It doesn’t grasp round too lengthy both. Some listeners could balk at a four-minute operating time, however Vili V develops a barely bigger canvas than regular as a means for the music to succeed in its full musical potential. There’s no query that it’s a rousing success on that rating.

“Tupelo Rhythm” lays Vili V’s coronary heart naked for listeners, however not within the customary vogue. His full-throated love for roots rock comes by way of loud and clear and tells us extra about what has that means in Vili V’s life than any brooding reflections can ever hope to attain. He’s been at this for a while now and the brand new single exhibits us, if we want proof, that he’s removed from completed.

Mindy McCall