The listless Complete Strangers drifts by in such a haze that it’s impossible to maintain any concentration on it after the first 10 minutes or so. When it ends, after 43 minutes and 10 songs, awareness that it’s finished only comes when whatever else has been focussed on instead comes to an end. Appropriately, for Vetiver’s mainstay Andy Cabic, it seems his attention has been elsewhere too since the release of 2011’s The Errant Charm. The Complete Strangers press release says he has been “experimenting with elaborate vegetarian cooking” and digging through San Francisco’s record shops to support his club DJing in the years between each album. He has also composed soundtracks for the film Smashed and the documentary The Family Jams.
Complete Strangers could be the product of disinterest. Indeed, said press release quotes Cabic saying “I’m not sure I can speak to the meanings of or what’s exactly happening in each song.” If it is not the product of disinterest, then Cabic really needs to light a fire under himself and turn his musical autopilot off.
Where The Errant Charm was woozy and had the sheen of Eighties-style Fleetwood Mac, Complete Strangers takes this to the nth degree. In wholeheartedly embracing the now-stale yacht-rock craze to make an album which sounds as distant as possible and is bereft of any memorable melodies, Cabic sounds barely awake throughout. There is, though, one hint of life – “Loose Ends” is an agreeable slice of Byrds-like, Tom Petty-ish powerpop suggesting that all is not lost in this cotton-wool world. Unfortunately, Complete Strangers, issued in the UK four months after its US release, is uninspired, uninspiring aural wallpaper.
Overleaf: watch the trailer for Vetiver’s Complete Strangers
