list.co.uk/music Previews | MUSIC

CHRISTMAS PARTIES SEASONAL GIGS Various venues, Edinburgh and Glasgow LO-FI ROCK KURT VILE The Arches, Glasgow, Sun 15 Dec

He who has Christmas not in his heart will never find it under a tree. But he can get jiggy with the Yuletide spirit at a number of joyous pop bacchanals across our festive, fit-to-bursting central belt. Edinburgh shall be decked with jingle balls of the Kid Canaveral variety, as

the indie-rock charmers host their fourth annual Christmas Baubles knees-up (Portobello Town Hall, Sat 14 Dec) including Edwyn Collins, De Rosa and the michty Canaverals themselves. Auld Reekie also sees the annual Song, By Toad Christmas Party and the launch of their Five Records, Five Years boxset (Henry’s Cellar Bar, Sat 21 Dec), as well as the unmissable charity Christmas Songwriters’ Club, which this year welcomes Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison, Karine Polwart, Miaoux Miaoux (pictured, above), TeenCanteen and loads more (Queen’s Hall, Sun 22 Dec, see christmas-songwriters.com for full line-up). Femme-pop activists TYCI are set to thrill, Glasgow-style, with a timely

synth-pop sermon from electro saviours Chvrches and DJ sets from Sons and Daughters’ Adele Bethel and Pretty Ugly (SWG3, Sat 21 Dec), while erudite hip-hop livewire Louie from Hector Bizerk hosts a festive rap battle, the excellently titled Christmas Rapping (King Tut’s, Thu 19 Dec). Highlife bring the Yuletide exotica (CCA, Fri 20 Dec) thanks to Auntie Flo

and electro-supergroup Lovers’ Rights, which unites Dam Mantle and Golden Teacher, and sounds like all our Christmases came at once. (Nicola Meighan)

Unlikely guitar hero Kurt Vile’s first instrument was not actually a guitar but a banjo, given to him when he was 14 by his bluegrass-loving father. But Vile, the first-born son of ten siblings bred in the ’burbs of west Philadelphia, loved that banjo as if it were a guitar, and began home recording in his teens.

Banjo was eventually swapped for guitar, bands were formed, coffee shops played and a lot of bedroom recordings punted. Vile is now 33, married to his childhood sweetheart, with two daughters and a solo career one might call ‘burgeoning’. ‘It’s like climbing a ladder,’ he has said. ‘I like to climb it really slowly.’

But the magnificently maned slacker troubadour we know today is not so slack, having released five solo albums since 2008. He first broke through in 2011 with Smoke Ring For My Halo but his latest, Wakin on a Pretty Daze, is a sprawling 70-minute lo-fi indie rock odyssey. A couple of songs brush the ten- minute mark, unspooling in his trademark laid-back, almost lethargic playing style, which has been described by Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis as ‘kinda like Dave Gilmour. . . if I liked Dave Gilmour’. Mascis himself could be said to be an influence on Vile’s sleepy, soothing vocals.

The unapologetic self-indulgence has paid off. Vile is back in the UK playing ever larger venues with his band The Violators, while critical approval has come from unexpected quarters, as Vile has just been named Rocker of the Year by men’s mag GQ. Perhaps they want to stroke his hair. Or is that just me? (Fiona Shepherd)

METAL BLACK SABBATH The Hydro, Glasgow, Mon 16 Dec

It came as little surprise when, following its release in June this year, Black Sabbath’s reunion album 3 thundered to the top of the charts in the UK, the US and seven other countries from New Zealand to Sweden. After all, it was Ozzy Osbourne’s first time back in the studio (successfully, at least) with fellow classic-era members Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler since 1978’s Never Say Die!. There was a reunion for the Ozzfest festival in 1997, of course, but the couple of new tracks on the following year’s Reunion live album were as far as sessions went before things broke apart again. So this year’s revival is as much about the fact that we’re in an era when personal appearances onstage are where the returns are, and where every semi-retired old-timer is getting back on the train. It bears saying that the album itself, produced by the justly revered Rick Rubin, isn’t very good. It sways too close to the loud and overblown metal style that Osbourne churned out during the 80s, and rarely is Iommi’s guitar allowed to break free of the sludgy psych-metal fug and send a thrilled shiver up the spine.

Yet rarely does anyone go to a reunion to hear what everyone’s up to these days. Instead, they relive past glories with vigour, and if Birmingham’s finest are able to recreate the menacing grind of ‘Paranoid’, ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ and given new life thanks to the Marvel movie franchise ‘Iron Man’, no one’s going to be disappointed. (David Pollock)

12 Dec 2013–23 Jan 2014 THE LIST 95