If you are in a current original band, but with a sound from a past era, you can elaborate your own sound with anything that has influenced you, see what comes out, and then leave it to reviewers to pinpoint who or what you sound like. It’s one of the hazards of having your album reviewed I guess, but a necessary evil. Sometimes it will work out great – you can just sit back and say “Thin Lizzy eh? Yeah, I’ll take that…”. But then of course, someone might say you sound like a band you didn’t really want to sound like, but if you do have familiar traits in your sound then thems the risks you take. Hopefully I can get away with not upsetting anyone…
It helps when you are rather good at what you do, which Carousel are, and maybe it’s a bit lazy to just draw comparisons to a band’s overall sound rather than try and describe it in minute detail, but I’m feeling lazy and Carousel do actually sound at times like Thin Lizzy, particularly in their music. Their Lizzy-esque twin-guitar approach is just a part of it, as they have a similar groove and swagger that Lizzy’s Gorham/Robertson era provided. There’s so much more to them when you dig deeper of course. Vocally there’s some Bon Scott in there, and plenty of Phil Mogg, but there is an American angle to the lyrics at times which sometimes bely that. Actually, no it doesn’t, Mogg was always banging on about Highways and Freeways…but why not, it just has a cooler ring than being “…stuck behind a tractor on the A1079 to Hull” for example. And Carousel are, actually American, so they should have their own slant on any British influence. The American leaning means they remind me a little of Nevada Beach at times (like on ‘Buried Alive In Your Arms’) when you combine the music and vocals – also with a touch of first album Tygers of Pan Tang or very early Def Leppard too on tracks like ‘Jim’s Song’.
But on the whole, it’s a combination of that Schenker era UFO and 70’s Thin Lizzy to varying degrees that seems to ring through the most often (‘Highway Strut’ is UFO with a bit of Lizzy, ‘Strange Revelation’ – the other way around). The important thing of course is that it all sounds bloody great! Another major plus point is that the band never shy away from a fantastic, heartfelt lengthy guitar solo, which works perfectly – ‘2113’ itself, the fabulous Southern-style ‘Turn To Stone’ (A Joe Walsh cover) and the aforementioned ‘Strange Revelations’ in particular have absolute belters! The latter comes out of it into a vocal bit really reminiscent of Phil Lewis (unexpectedly) – whereas the former two fade out in a classic Skynyrd/Molly Hatchet style – excellent. The drummer’s occasional use of a cowbell is a particular percussive highlight for me! Small things an’ all that…
‘Man Like Me’ is my personal favourite (at the moment anyway – it’s vying with ‘Turn To Stone’ – but there’s plenty to choose from!), which reminds the listener that this is a band with their own style and identity, using their natural sound to it’s fullest. Uptempo and rocking, it has some great lead (and bass!) licks, a memorable hook, and, like the rest of the album manages to be current as well as faithfully retro. It’s one of those timeless, genre-defying tracks that could have been performed by Jackyl, LA Guns, Raging Slab, UFO, Heaven, Accept or Lizzy – it’s just ass-kicking Rock n’ Roll as they say.
In fact, why analyse further, when that phrase just sums Carousel up – they ARE are gloriously Heavy Ass-Kicking Rock n’ Roll in attitude, image and music – the whole package.
(8/10 Andy Barker)
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