Carina Round - Things You Should Know [EP]

Self Released

September 26, 2009, 04:53 PM

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Some records just leave you flummoxed. I’d always had Carina Round pegged as a provocative noise-meister in the mould of P J Harvey, all shrieks and sharp edges but I hadn’t been following her career closely enough since her 2001 debut which gathered all those Polly Jean comparisons. Since then, and like PJ Harvey, she has been playing with persona's and styles over three albums and numerous tour slots on both sides of the Atlantic. So her 2006 third (and major label) album “Slow Motion Addict” was produced by Glen Ballard (producer of Alanis Morrisette’s “Jagged Little Pill” - and songwriter for Aerosmith, Anastacia and Christina Aguilera) and she has continued to shape-shift. This electronically-polished and self-released EP includes contributions from Gary Go. “Rid of Me” it ain’t.

Opening song 'Backseat' starts with a gentle nursery rhyme sound and child-like singing – mixing wonder and vulnerability in equal measure. The song is about (I think) adolescent innocence and the effect of the passing of time. Mid-song it shifts to a different tone: the voice is more mature and begins to repeat the refrain “We are born into the wrong time / It should be forever / God told me.” Around this, a trumpet and a chorus of voices swell creating a gospel-like effect as the intensity builds – before suddenly dropping back to solo voice for one last repetition of “it should be for ever”. And the songs finishes. It is beautifully constructed and quite affecting.

The rest of the EP has a similar approach – spartan openings with Carina’s vocals setting the mood followed by a subtle interplay of different instruments and electronic embellishments wrapped around. Throughout there is a great sense of dynamics - songs rise and fall, build to mid-song climaxes and fall into quiet passages. It has style yes, but the whole doesn’t quite ring true. There are moments when the EP seems to want show how quirky or dark it can be but the overall impression is it is striving for mainstream acceptance through an over-polished sheen.

'Please Don’t Stop' is a slinky and sultry tale of longing and obsession but it sounds as though it has been neutered for Radio 2 daytime airplay. 'Thief In The Sky' has a haunting twang to the verse and delivers a quirky and chirpy chorus but ultimately feels quite tame. Now Carina Round fits into a tradition of singer-songwriters from Tori Amos to Joan As Policewoman who are playing with different styles and complex issues of identity and power. But like the front cover (air-brushed woman (Carina?) with salon-smooth tresses reclining on satin sheets) these songs feel too much in love with the style not the substance. 'Do You,' the final song, does contain moments that jolt. It is another tale of loss and obsessive love but with dramatic guitar touches and thrashed piano chords that ends with a startling flash of bitter jealously: “Should you find someone ... scratch her name into your heart / scratch my memory from your brain / [I’ll] scratch her fucking eyes out.” Sadly it’s a rare moment – most lyrics fall too much into the kooky / spooky cliché camp.

So I find myself bamboozled. Carina’s rich, sonorous voice is undoubtedly deployed to great effect and there are moments of beauty across these five songs but the arrangements and the song-writing do not inspire. I can see some people (fans of some of the above artists possibly) going all gooey over this but I’m left unmoved.

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