Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat (album review)

Tomorrow, this album hits a record store near you:

Carbon Leaf – Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat
(Vanguard, 2006) [buy]

     Carbon Leaf is a folk rock quintet that base out of Richmond, VA. The band formed back in 1992, performing events at their alma mater Randolph Macon College, and other colleges along the East Coast. Playing a mixture of jazz and folk, they received enthusiastic receptions from the crowds. The fans fell in love with Barry Privett’s detached yet pleasant voice, and the band’s diverse ensemble of instruments. Their obvious talent generated a grassroots popularity that eventually grew into national attention. After the band won the AMA’s “Coco-Cola New Music Award” in 2002, they signed with folk label Vanguard Records (Mindy Smith, Sinéad O'Connor) for their 2003 release Indian Summer.

     Carbon Leaf’s fifth full length album, Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat is the follow-up to Indian Summer. Like its predecessor, Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat sounds more focused and predictable than earlier albums. Thus, the album seems somewhat vapid, its songs lacking the swagger of concert favorites like “Flood” or “The Boxer”. The arrangements on the album fail to effectively utilize the band’s instrumental capability. Instead, the arrangements are mostly centered on the acoustic guitar. Other instruments like the mandolin play a minimal role. Long-time fans may be frustrated by the album’s hesitance to push musical limits possible through the spontaneous improvisations of jazz and the carefree enchantment of American folk music.
     In spite of the album’s shortcomings, it clearly demonstrates the band’s creative skill, the outcome of a three week recording session in a Nashville studio. The material for the album started as a collection of rough outlines which the band transformed into heartfelt songs, with inventive lyrics. “I wanted songs that were emotionally available to the listener and to me,” Barry Privett explains, “without trying to mask what I’m saying with clever language. The feelings are anxious and regretful. They talk about living up to the mistakes you’ve made. They examine the humanity and weaknesses of everyday life.”
     Like Privett says, the songs employ colourful, lucid imagery to relate to the listener. The first song and single “Learn To Fly” gets carried away in this well-meaning endeavor to be understandable, resulting in an vaguely inspirational analogy between making progress in life and birds flying. But the self-conscious melody is simplistically beautiful and makes up for the unfortunate reality that college graduates can still write bad poetry.
     “Block of Wood” redeems the band’s poetical ability and absolves Randolph Macon College’s English program. It mourns the remnants of a family tree whittled away by fire and flood until all that remains among the ashes is a block of wood. The writer finds this block and treasures it as a souvenir of his heritage. With these thoughtful words, the song evokes images of a tiny campfire lost among the prairie at twilight. The breeze carries the twang of a guitar and the tinkle of a mandolin played by two silhouettes huddled by the fire. Alone in the wilderness, they are singing with voices warm with hope like the embers before them.
     The adventurous wanderlust awakens in “International Airport”. The song describes the relaxing thrill of traveling far away from home free from obligations or schedules. As the time zones change into a blur, the writer slips into a comfortable reverie while he flies above the clouds, knowing that home is only a plane flight away. The accompaniment deftly complements the adventurous spirit of these lyrics, with slightly dissonant piano chords and ambient guitar textures that are reminiscent of Brian Eno’s recent arrangements on Surprise, his collaboration with Paul Simon.
     The climax of the album is clearly the song “The War Was In Color”. It is an emotionally-charged conversation between a solider and his grandson about the War. Finding a box of the grandfather’s memoirs, the grandson asks him if the War was like the movies. Telling his grandson to sit down, the grandfather begins to describe the realities of war from his first-hand perspective of it: “This black and white photo never captured my skin… the war was in color.” He speaks of the battlefield, sliced into pieces by explosive shells and searing metal bullets. He remembers makeshift funerals for fallen friends: “I held the canvas bag over the railing/The dead released, with the ship still sailing.” The song concludes with an unexpected revelation about the grandfather, "Now I lay in my grave at age twenty one." The grandfather wonders if the War and his death was worth the sacrifice: “What good did it do?/Well hopefully for you/A world without war.”

     Perhaps, one day his earnest legacy of peace will be realized.
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In closing, here are two songs that are begging to be listened to. The first is by Halloween, Alaska, who are a little like a younger brother of the Postal Service, with more pop hooks but still listenable: :: Halloween, Alaska – Call It Clear ::
And the second is by Scottish acoustic solo act Alexi Murdoch, who sings in a fabulous, unassuming voice: :: Alexi Murdoch – All My Days ::