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Album Bio:
When Carbon Choir entered the Denver music arena in 2007 with their debut self-titled EP, they sounded mellow and soul-baring, joining the ranks of introspective bands like Matt Pond PA that felt like looking out a rainy window into the dark and lonely night. The were good at blanketing the lonely lyrics was an epic mixing of warm piano and lilting guitar and bass lines.
With 2008's Middletown, the Choir boys seem to have gotten up and out of rainy bedrooms and moved into a rusty pick-up truck. Picking up the tempo, the newest EP feels more like a road trip than a teary night inside, barreling through the dusty roads of middle America with the same skillful blanket of sounds along for the ride.
With their backgrounds, the tight arrangement fits. All four band members are classically trained in their instruments—from vocalist and guitarist Joel Van Horne's degree in jazz guitar to the classical piano doctorate keyboard player Chris Hatton is finishing up, Carbon Choir definitely knows their way around the stage. Tapping in to the best parts of their earlier emotional outpouring, Middletown continues where the last album left off, still breaking into soulful piano melodies and drizzly nostalgia on songs like the eerie and melodic "White Laces." Describing sinking suns and cheap parades, the tune builds with the ascending drums of Blue Knights Drum Corps alum Ryan Fechter's steady beating and Horne's confessional, soaring vocals. Alternatingly introspective and reaching outward, and with two solid EPs under their collective belt, Carbon Choir is definitely due to record an album to show Denver what all that classical training can really create.
by Robin Edwards