Music report, part 2
Dec. 20th, 2006 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperTonight's iTunes music report will focus upon the early Carbon Leaf albums I purchased. In the absence of a Carbon Leaf icon, I default to Elvis With Guitar. For lo, he is the progenitor of all my Music Love! And now, in order of release date:
Meander--![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seimaisin warned me that Carbon Leaf's own lead singer apparently tries to warn people against purchasing Meander. I think Mr. Privett is harder on this album than I am, but I can kind of see where he's coming from. It's definitely their roughest work, and his vocals have this rough, raw edge to them on this album that you don't hear on any of the others. It's like he was trying to imitate heavy metal singers when he was a teenager and hadn't quite gotten out of the habit yet once Carbon Leaf formed. If you are more familiar with Carbon Leaf's later albums (such as the most excellent Echo Echo, which is where I came in), that aspect of it might possibly put you off.
I had already heard a few of the tracks on this album since I'd downloaded the freebies off an earlier version of the Carbon Leaf site, and had also scarfed free copies of a couple of tracks off the MSN music store at one point since I had free download codes, so I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with them. "Kettle" is the track I remembered the most, I think. And I will note that "Skeleton Man Dance" did kind of make me go "buh huh what now?" as I listened to the lyrics, just trying to figure out what the heck it was about. So at least in that respect, it was an interesting listen. We'll see if any of the tracks in general start growing on me whenever they come up in my Carbon Leaf random rotation.
Shadows in the Banquet Hall--A stronger listen than Meander, and again, some songs here I'd already heard a time or two before from checking out the previously available freebie downloads off the Carbon Leaf site. "Wolftrap and Fireflies" was the most familiar of these to me, I think. Some good listening here, though overall mostly striking me as "with occasional glimmers of the splendidness to come". I think it was at the tail end of "For The Girl", though, that I noted some really nice instrument work.
Ether-Electrified Porch Music--Okay, now we're talkin'. By this, Carbon Leaf's third album, they're really starting to get their groove together; their sound is coalescing into the powerhouse of Echo Echo and Indian Summer. My biggest beef that I have with this album, I think, is one it shares with the two previous; there's this mixing issue where the vocals don't seem nearly as strong as they ought to with the vocals. It's like all the guys had their mikes turned down a notch too much or something. And this issue doesn't happen on the later albums at all.
There are several tracks here that I'd heard before, either as freebies off this album or the 5 Alive! concert one, or actually performed live at the one Carbon Leaf show I've been to so far--when they opened for Great Big Sea in 2004. That they still have several songs off this album in their concert rotation, I think, tells me that here is where they really did start to pull it together. Favorite listens off this one so far: "Home" and "Blue Ridge Laughing", possibly with "Nowadays", "Kinakeet Island", and "Aurora" tying for third.
Meander--
seimaisin warned me that Carbon Leaf's own lead singer apparently tries to warn people against purchasing Meander. I think Mr. Privett is harder on this album than I am, but I can kind of see where he's coming from. It's definitely their roughest work, and his vocals have this rough, raw edge to them on this album that you don't hear on any of the others. It's like he was trying to imitate heavy metal singers when he was a teenager and hadn't quite gotten out of the habit yet once Carbon Leaf formed. If you are more familiar with Carbon Leaf's later albums (such as the most excellent Echo Echo, which is where I came in), that aspect of it might possibly put you off.I had already heard a few of the tracks on this album since I'd downloaded the freebies off an earlier version of the Carbon Leaf site, and had also scarfed free copies of a couple of tracks off the MSN music store at one point since I had free download codes, so I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with them. "Kettle" is the track I remembered the most, I think. And I will note that "Skeleton Man Dance" did kind of make me go "buh huh what now?" as I listened to the lyrics, just trying to figure out what the heck it was about. So at least in that respect, it was an interesting listen. We'll see if any of the tracks in general start growing on me whenever they come up in my Carbon Leaf random rotation.
Shadows in the Banquet Hall--A stronger listen than Meander, and again, some songs here I'd already heard a time or two before from checking out the previously available freebie downloads off the Carbon Leaf site. "Wolftrap and Fireflies" was the most familiar of these to me, I think. Some good listening here, though overall mostly striking me as "with occasional glimmers of the splendidness to come". I think it was at the tail end of "For The Girl", though, that I noted some really nice instrument work.
Ether-Electrified Porch Music--Okay, now we're talkin'. By this, Carbon Leaf's third album, they're really starting to get their groove together; their sound is coalescing into the powerhouse of Echo Echo and Indian Summer. My biggest beef that I have with this album, I think, is one it shares with the two previous; there's this mixing issue where the vocals don't seem nearly as strong as they ought to with the vocals. It's like all the guys had their mikes turned down a notch too much or something. And this issue doesn't happen on the later albums at all.
There are several tracks here that I'd heard before, either as freebies off this album or the 5 Alive! concert one, or actually performed live at the one Carbon Leaf show I've been to so far--when they opened for Great Big Sea in 2004. That they still have several songs off this album in their concert rotation, I think, tells me that here is where they really did start to pull it together. Favorite listens off this one so far: "Home" and "Blue Ridge Laughing", possibly with "Nowadays", "Kinakeet Island", and "Aurora" tying for third.