Go to their bandcamp page and it says released January 18th and I've been listening to this one since then, but they told me their album release date was March 30th so I waited a bit. With that extra time I've been trying to nail down what it is I like about CARLO but it remains elusive. It's hard to even pick out a real standout track, as I've found this record is best taken as a whole. It's the mood really, laid-back and adventurous at once, like a day trip to a swimming hole. While overall I get a little bit of a desert feel (without the drama of spaghetti western) there's a bit more variation in that, with some passes at more groovy Booker T & the MG's, some surf (think the easier-going B-sides of surf hits), and a familiar but hard to track feeling from tracks like "Florida Keys" and "The Return".
It's almost easier to define this record by what it's not than what it is, but that does a disservice to the experience as a whole. It's a very cohesive record that will lift your mood, one of the pleasant surprises of this year.
It's up on bandcamp for digital and they were nice enough to send me a vinyl copy. You'd think that simple album art wouldn't benefit from a large format all that much, but's just as pleasantly satisfying as the music.
