Carr, Miller And The Shalants / Passage Through The Wilderness Vol. 2

American Dust

The sound of Miller Carr's debut album (self-titled, on Isota Records) was once described in "what if" terms. As in, "what if Tom Waits was born in Kingston, moved to Detroit to record a Smokey Robinson-produced album with the Velvet Underground as his backing band?" And it really does sound like that.  But where Carr's first album condensed these varied influences, his latest (and first to be billed alongside his squirrelly, innovative band The Shalants) spreads them out and gives them space. Dark, dub-influenced, lyrically dense epics ("Monk and The Middle Child"); perfect playful slices of '60s AM radio pop ("Hey La"); urgent, propulsive pleas ("When It Comes Down..."); and a slippery, original surf song ("Katsu") all share space on this modern masterpiece.  The album's title, Passage Through Wilderness (part two of the Wilderness trilogy), not only speaks to the mania and wonder of the album's concept, but also nods to Miller's years spent growing up in the idyllic, alpine wilderness of Northern California's Shasta County. It's a shot of his own journeys and experiences blown up movie size. The dreamy, foggy soundtrack to a long-lost Terrence Malick film.  The band's predilection for vintage instruments and self-recorded analog sounds recalls the bold adventures of The Walkmen or Liars, while the songwriting's mesh of Bob Dylan's wide-eyed young diatribes and Todd Rundgren's blue-eyed soul is securely in sync with fellow travelers such as Cass McCombs, Ed Harcourt, and Richard Swift.  "...as sharp and clever as a John Coltrane cut yet as sleazy and intense as the Velvet Underground at their best. It is unsettling, eerie and yet strangely welcoming." --Incendiarymag.com   "[Carr's] driven songwriting is more retrospective than introspective, as if he's slowly turning around, Fonzie-like, to look at the world again and again, finding a carousel with organ-driven smoke lapping softly at the ceiling." --SF Bay Guardian   "This is music for heat waves and minor floods, or at least for the kinds of small, crowded venues where the walls are beaded with sweat and the singer can barely be seen through a haze of humidity and cigarette smoke." --Popsheep

• SHARE

  •  Twitter
  •  Stumbleupon
  •  Digg
  •  del.icio.us
  •  Facebook
  •  Mixx