Among the masses of hipsterdom, the pantheon of Americana has long been dismissed as “dad rock.” Uncool, out-of-touch, and pedestrian. It’s to be expected: indie rock has always been rooted in a sort of iconoclasm. It’s imbued with a rejection of establishment practices and the conventions of commercial music.

Then, like a bolt of lightning across the night sky, a two-headed beast reached out of Philadelphia and grabbed Dad Rock by the shoulders and pulled it toward itself.

The beast’s heads were Kurt Vile and Adam Granduciel.

Toward the end of the Bush Administration, the pair founded The War On Drugs, which combined the pointed sentiments of songwriters like Bruce Springsteen, the noisy atmospheres of shoegaze, and the meditative structures of Krautrock. It’s a simple formula—one that I once heard described as “if the Spiritualized and Springsteen sections of a record collection melted together.” In fact, it was these two songwriters that got me to pay attention to Springsteen in the first place.

But a few years later, Vile left The War On Drugs—though Granduciel would join his backing band. His solo work takes the same formula and turns it inward.

And Smoke Ring For My Halo is an inwardly-focused album if ever there was one. The sonic palette is founded on reverb-soaked acoustic guitars, twinkling atmospheres, droning keyboards, and delicate percussion. There are a couple rockers on here with pounding drums and guitar solos—the set jaw of “Society Is My Friend” and the moody-riffed “Puppet to the Man”—but their pumping fists and vitriol are a little out of place.

The heart of this album is found in its somnambulant introspection. These are the songs that dribble out of your mouth at 3am when you can’t sleep. They are modern-day pastoral poems accompanies by lazy strums of an acoustic guitar.

And while Kurt’s made a career of this sort of stoner philosophizing, he’s never been as profound as he is here. His discography has never again achieved the heart-pulling delicacy of “Baby’s Arms,” the free association of “On Tour,” or the windblown easiness of “In My Time.”

Smoke Ring For My Halo is a decidedly singular album, simultaneously self-aware and oblivious to its surroundings.

It’s also worth noting that I first heard of Kurt Vile when I mentioned to someone that I liked The Pains of Being Pure At Heart. “Oh man, you’d love Kurt Vile then.” That might have been what got me into him, but I’ve never seen the comparison.