This is the new album by Carla J Easton, whose star was already flying high in 2020 with two singles (both included here)…
It really is quite an astounding piece of work – every one of these 11 tracks here is something special – and the backing instrumentation is astonishing in its attention to detail…
And then there is that voice – Carla in better form than ever, with help from Stina out of Honeyblood and MC Solareye (aka Stanley Odd’s Dave Hook).
It is, frankly, a struggle to nail the standouts here – obviously the two previous singles (‘Never Knew You‘ and ‘Get Lost‘), but also ‘Spun Out’, and ‘Waves That Fall’, a slightly slower track which then burbles into another banger, with Solareye’s raps segueing seamlessly into the track, adding to the general wistfulness of this one….
‘Never Knew You’ has been previewed live before (BM thinks anyway) and is sparser than some of the other tracks – is it about a whirlwind romance, maybe…
‘Signing It In’ is slower and something of an anthem… while ‘Beautiful Boy’ uses another massively parpy synth backdrop to relate further romantic entanglements…
And ‘Over You’, well the sequenced riff had BM from the first – and yes this is the standout track… sounding like ABBA vs 2ManyDJs, it is excellent indeed!
The title track has been previously reviewed and benefits from the vocals and input of Stina, while ‘Catch Me’ has another ridiculously catchy keyboard riff, morphing into something like Moloko vs Erasure – good influences indeed!
And last track ‘Coming Up Daisies’ is a mid-speed ballad which rounds off quite the sonic experience of the year so far – Carla does it again, on a bigger scale, and even better this time!