Short Reviews [Carptree - 2001 - "Carptree"]

Sweden's Carptree only features two musicians (Niclas Flinck & Carl Westholm) who both sing and play all instruments on their debut album. This is totally synthesizers-based music (add here awful programmed drums and almost inaudible synthy-bass) with just a few notable parts - both rhythmical and solo - all being performed by a guest guitarist (Ulf Edelonn). As to the music, Carptree performs just slightly prog-tinged pop art, full of vocals. While I've found one short and simple separate instrumental part in just about a half of the songs on the CD (and there are 13 in all here), others don't have such specific things at all. Just about one third of the songs contain vocal parts (and there are plenty of them here) that I find varied, with a great reservation, though. Others are mostly as monotonous as songs by the majority of MTV's inhabitants (as well as dwellers on the threshold of MTV, and Carptree is close to those). In terms of Progressiveness, the only more or less positive point on this album is that most of the instrumental textures, supporting the vocal themes, sound quite rich and more diverse than the vocals themselves, this background music the only interesting thing here. To sum up, I would add that it reminds me often of Phil Collins' solo output, especially in the vocal parts, although closer to the end of the CD I detect some similarities to Michael Jackson whose style of singing is, sadly, immediately recognizable (as there are lots of music in the world you don't want to hear, yet you listen to it anyway and do it more than merely often, as if you MUST do it to hum its most cheesy refrains.) PS: This is a picture-disc, independently released by Carptree, and the guys sent it to me just being put in a 4-page booklet without the back sleeve.

Vitaly Menshikov: November 25, 2001