If we could travel back in time (and what good story doesn’t begin with a time machine?), pick up a few core members of the Grateful Dead, bring them and their gear forward and get them to release an album of Curtis Mayfield covers, one of the songs on that record (likely an Impressions-era Mayfield tune) would give us a hint towards decoding the genetic make-up of Vetiver, who played to a half-full room at the Academy this evening. But then that would really only open up one aspect of Vetiver, and the time machine seems a lot of effort, especially when we have Vetiver themselves, who released an album of covers and a follow-up ep just last year – 2008’s Things of the Past and More of the Past – giving us a direct sense of where the band is coming from: Michael Hurley, Townes Van Zandt, Loudon Wainwright III, and, well, A.R. Kane. Songwriters all, pure and simple, with the song at the core of any performance. Tonight, the band were all about that, and in fine five-piece form, all Fender amps, muted drums, subtle bass, keyboards, and just a little tambourine. Their most recent album, Tight Knit, may not be their strongest, but you wouldn’t know it from the winsome playing and arrangements live. Since signing to Bella Union in the UK and Sub Pop in the US, Vetiver, who have played Dulcimer in Chorlton twice in the last few years, have managed comfortably the move to a larger, more central venue at the Academy – though they’ve yet to achieve anywhere near the kind of attention their labelmates the Fleet Foxes have managed. Singer, guitarist and mainman Andy Cabic kept audience participation to a minimum as the band shifted from groove to groove, performing tracks from Vetiver’s four full-length releases, including a smash closing cover of Swedish beat band The Wizards’ ‘See You Tonight’. But it was Tight Knit that featured, an album I’m more prepared to forgive having heard the songs live: the band play together in a natural mould, particularly guitarists Cabic and Sanders Trippe, who both laze about the stage but put on a remarkable show of guitar calls and responses when called for, as during one of the sets highlights, ‘You May Be Blue’ from 2007 Piccadilly Records Album of the Year To Find Me Gone. What set the tone, though, was Cabic’s smooth, laid-back, and dulcet voice, which calms a listener like only Fred Neil could do forty years ago. Something special going on here: more of this, and maybe less of the Ting Tings for awhile is all I’m saying.