Carptree - Superhero

Home Artist links Label link

Carptree - Superhero

Artist:	Carptree
Title:	Superhero
Label:	Fosfor Creation
Length(s):	61 minutes
Year(s) of release:	2003
Month of review:	[08/2003]

Line up

Niclas Flinck - lead vocals
Carl Westholm - keyboards
Ulf Edelonn - guitars, bass on 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11
Jejo Percovic - drums on 1, 2, 3, 7, 9
Oivin Tronstad - backing vocals on 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10
Stefan Fanden - bass on 3, 10
Kjell Bjarnhage - snaredrum on 4, 8 , 11
Jan Hellman - drums on 5, 10
Franziska Edvinsson - narrator on 9

Tracks

1)	Superhero
2)	Fathers House
3)	Calm Sea Of Their Pupils
4)	There Like Another
5)	Host Vs. Graft
6)	Watching The Clock
7)	Into The Never To Speak Of
8)	Flesh
9)	Malfunction
10)	Lie Down
11)	Sleep

Summary

Superhero is the second album by Swedish duo Carptree

The music

Superhero starts with a sort of Musical Box opening, with spiky piano, played softly. As the track progresses, a PFM synth wave washes over the piano, to return from it. The guitar (synth?) solo pulls the track off the track it put itself on. The closing climax expands on the PFM feel, with that melancholy feel regularly found in Scandinavian music. Good opener.

Fathers House vocal line has the exchange between synth backing and piano on a military drum roll, slowly building to the mid section, taking it a step further. The atmosphere in this track is striking. Like its predecessor, the track moves towards a large emotional climax.

Calm Sea Of Their Pupils kicks of right away, with the sound of crashes and eerie vocals more or less skipping the build up, and moving seemingly directly into what is at least a bit eclectic, slowing down to the quiet but never quite reaching it in being surpassed by the climax.

There Like Another is another track floating on the melancholy synth and still piano. Yet another good track, but maybe a bit too much like its predecessors in its build up and atmosphere.

Even though the synths smooth it over, Host vs. Graft is less of a melancholy and more of a purely melodic, almost poppy, or neo proggy track, with Mark Kelly keys towards the end.

Watching The Clock leans heavily on the piano, making it almost a piano vocal track, but the sound and the synth is just a tad too full for that.

Into The Never To Speak Of opens up a heavy guitar sound, reminiscent of Anekdoten. Although things calm down after that, the track is definitely more raw than others on the album, making for a welcome change.

Flesh is a bit more eclectic again, stronger on vocals and instruments. The chorus reminds me of eighties Gabriel tracks. Towards the end of the track the melancholy takes over again.

Malfunction has a technical feel about it, with seemingly computerized narrator and vocoder sounds, as well as big, electronic, orchestration. In this it is somewhat reminiscent of mid eighties band Propaganda.

Lie Down is still pretty strong, but no longer as electronic. The track has its poppy sides.

Closer Sleep is somewhat bitter, more gentle once again, but not smoothed over so much as earlier tracks, making it closer combining the influences on the album.

Conclusion

Superhero as a whole is sort of in the Porcupine Tree Stupid Dream vein. Yet, in some way Carptree miss out in stringing the tracks together to a great album. Most of the individual songs are great, and the album is consistent enough. A little too much maybe, especially the first half. This is where it falls short of aforementioned PT album: the next track seems to be looking at the emotion from the same angle. As beautiful as the piano sound may be, as nicely as the synth may smooth things over, you can only do so many tracks that way without losing the tension. Mixing up the more up tempo last couple of tracks with the melancholic earlier stuff might have worked. Having said all that, the fact remains that there is a great deal to enjoy in this album.