It's unfortunate when a good artist begins their career, their first album, with a track that is both really good and almost entirely unlike everything else they'd ever produce. David Vandervelde does this on his first album, with Nothin' No, a song that feels like it has an awful lot in common with The War On Drugs (through a Glam tinted glass) (whose song Taking the Farm has been featured)... like, it could be a Kurt Vile song, which is totally unfair to Vandervelde to say because he got a CD out before Vile... well, whatever, in my lexicon, Vile comes before Vandervelde.

Did you see what I did there? O' Lordy.

This was recorded in Jay Bennett's studio, who I just recently learned had died back in May. I'm sad about this, and today I was supposed to post one of Bennett's songs, but instead I am posting this because I am excited about it.

This kid is only 22 on this recording. He was 19 when he wrote the song. This makes me feel a little like a loser, and I say this a lot, like about Peter Gabriel in his work with Genesis, you see, I'm pointing out my themes for you.

It's disappointment!

This song is about the best things ever: getting high & bitches who sleep with you behind their boyfriend's back and play with your head, too. I think the lyric "when your boyfriend drove to meet you, you covered the bruises on your neck" is the most romantic thing ever. I wonder what this means.

It's a shame, though, and I must cover this because I don't want you to suffer the same fate I did: don't dive into Vandervelde's work expecting a lot of music that rocks quite like this does. On this album only two have tempos anything close to rocking (Jacket and Wisdom from a Tree) and the rest feel kind of easy listening. His second album, Waiting For The Sunrise is almost entirely one slow tempo, the kind of music that drifts hazily over a AM truck radio while you lie in the back sleepily watching the sunset holding some pretty girl's hand. I don't have a truck, and I've never done that, but when you listen to it you'll know exactly what I mean.

That's not to say that I am disappointed in Vandervelde's latest album (it's quite good, really), it's just that it's... unfortunate. I would have liked a second album full of Nothin' No class rock songs... but I've got The War On Drugs' Wagonwheel Blues for that, I suppose. Vandervelde's next album will surely be great, no matter what tempo or influences it's indebted to, so no harm, no foul, we've just got a bunch of great music to listen to in the very end.

Thanks, man. You're totally inspirational.

Free Download Note: You can download this song (as well as Jacket and two songs from Waiting For The Sunrise, all worth grabbing) for free courtesy of Vandervelde's label Secretly Canadian.