CARI CLARA – It’s Our Hearts They’re After
Hearing a piece of music is like meeting someone. The last thing you want to do is meet someone who looks really nice but hasn’t a dent of a personality. Cari Clara have a sound that, upon first glance, is quite pleasing. They employ tones and moods that evoke emotion not unlike mountain moving acts such as Radiohead and Muse. But an artist needs to be able to accurately decide when his product is finished, and when he needs to keep his painting on the easel.
Having said that, the newest release from Cari Clara lands too close to incomplete. It’s Our Hearts They’re After is built of 10 tracks of unimpressive (or should I say, uninspiring) build-ups to solos and bridges that don’t really take the listener anywhere. Whole sections of songs have the tendency to continue on without presenting the notion that one song has ended and another has begun.
It’s Our Hearts They’re After suffers from a blind aesthetic — the whole thing seems to have a “wandering in the dark” kind of feeling that has less to do with setting a dark mood and more with not taking the time to experiment before settling on a sound that was deemed appropriate. As far as structure and progression is concerned, the structure is basic and elementary; the progression, is pretty much nonexistent. Songs like “Hold.Hope.” and “A Day At The Pharmacy” start off a few steps below the song’s plateau, and 40 seconds in you’re left wondering where the rest of the song is, or you’re checking your headphone jacks to see if you’re hearing the whole sound. Every track leaves the listener feeling as though the pinnacle point of the elements in the song aren’t being met. The guitar sections are filled in, but left without a sense of rhythmic complexity. Heart-driving drums and percussion sections don’t hit nearly as hard as required to match the severity of the mood, and the soul-wrenching vocals just aren’t believable. All the bits and pieces are working just enough to form an actual song, but aren’t meeting the required traits for a solid, promising body of work.
As was said before, the style leaves nothing to quarrel. They have an audible model that can take them to the big leagues. The issue at hand is the structure of the work. If Cari Clara can step up their ability to make their songs listenable they’d have something up their sleeve. In order to do that, they need to keep their tastes and beef up their composition skills. Without that they’re doomed to be a group that is easily ignored for all the wrong reasons.
(Deep Elm Records, 210 N. Church Street #2502, Charlotte, NC 28202-2385)
