Carter USM - A World Without Dave

When someone says Carter, an image of two oddly-matched blokes is conjured up, one a crazy-looking nutter with a forever scraggly bit of hair sprouting from his shaven head and a perpetually grinning sidekick alongside. And don’t forget the faithful drum machine banging away in the background. Okay, so you know they decided the drum machine had to go and brought in a drummer a couple of years back. They’ve now gone one better and enlarged into a six-piece. Apart from spending their time recruiting new band members, they have been extremely busy and have just finished recording about thirty songs. You may well ask why only release a mini-album of six tracks, then?

The album starts off with Broken Down in Broken Town and it is really depressing stuff complete with death march type drumming a perfect foil to the equally disheartening lyrics. Next you’re treated to more of the same in A World Without Dave dedicated to the memory of, guess who, Dave. In this, Jim Bob sings about the dreariness of life’s repetitiveness. Politics raises its head in Nowhere Fast with cynical lyrics like ‘This is our future/And it starts with a C/It stands for care in the community’, questioning the social welfare of today. The slow melancholy of Johnny Cash, awash with strings and gospel backing vocals near the end of the song. The last track, And God Created Brixton with the typical Carter ‘beat’ brings a welcome change to the slow tedium of the rest of the album. It was written about the riot in December 1995 and I’d say Carter have been reading too much George Orwell whilst they’ve been away with lines like ‘Big brother’s watching you’.

The whole album is fairly dispirited and displays a slight cynicism towards the world and if you’re expecting the Let’s get tattoos or After the Watershed type of Carter, then don’t...(6)

Jaso