Vetiver

Tight Knit (Sub Pop)

By Aiden Landman
Published: February 19th, 2009 | 9:00am

Tight Knit, the fourth record by San Francisco’s Vetiver, is a record of constants. The thoughts, melodies, and song structures therein are economical in their makeup; the voices and instrumentation are nearly constant in their volume and dynamics, and the emotions on the record run from playful to introspective.

Making a mid-tempo canny record can serve the purpose of bringing a group's sound to a larger audience, especially if (as is the case with Tight Knit) the themes and lyrics are transcendent and allow for easy relation.

However, there is a downside to the chary compositions and frugal foundations on Tight Knit, it doesn't make for the most interesting record. There is only so much ground to be covered in between playful and introspective. Vetiver doesn't stake much on Tight Knit; the songs themselves seem at times cold and indifferent to the emotions and experiences conjured by them.

For fans of the sunny San Francisco folk of yesteryear, Vetiver is a godsend — their music shows an exceptional amount of reverence for their Haight-Ashbury forefathers. For those not so jazzed about the summer of love, there is always something else; for people on the fence, it is worth a try. You can do a whole lot worse than Vetiver and Tight Knit.

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