Album Review

Carolina Liar – Show Me What I’m Looking For

• 5th Jun 2009

If a band’s success is in any way related to the number of TV shows they’ve soundtracked, LA-based rockers Carolina Liar should be speeding up the Fame-O-Meter faster than Posh Spice on the run from a pudding trolley.

So if you’ve ever seen an episode of King Of The Hill, Greek, Gossip Girl, 90210 or One Tree Hill, chances are you’ve heard a track off the band‘s upcoming album Coming To Terms – but you probably thought it was Jason Mraz. Or Maroon 5. Or Nickelback, if somebody would just buy Chad Kroeger a throat transplant and put him out of his misery. You get the picture.

The six-piece Swedes specialise in radio-friendly MOR indie rock with leanings towards the sub-genres of ‘A Bit Whiny’, ‘Moderately Uplifting’ and ‘We’re All A Bit Beardy – Can’t You Tell?’ The twelve tracks on Coming To Terms are crammed with key changes, mournful platitudes and tales of spotty teenage rejection – ‘Did you come up to me so your night would be cheaper?’ bemoans lead singer Chad Wolf on the title track – all the better to soundtrack mild on-screen trauma undergone by glossy minors in Manhattan penthouses.

Coming To Terms is an ideal stocking filler for a fourteen-year-old with issues but not, perhaps, an album that offers much in the way of social commentary or insight. Into anything. The asterisked swear word in the title of sixth track All That Sh*t Is Gone comes across like a carefully manufactured ploy to appeal to, erm, slightly older teenagers – and the chorus goes like this: ‘All that sh*t is gone, la la la la la la.’ Repeatedly. Case closed.