S. CAREY - All We Grow

Let's get this out of the way—Sean Carey's choice of moniker comes off as one hell of a lame joke ("Boo!" Get it?). Shuffle around that groaner though, and you'll arrive at an album that is anything but dumb. But is it also too smart for its own good? After all, Carey (who got a leg in indie rock's door by landing a key role in Bon Iver's live band) is a trained percussionist with an ear for avant-classical heavyweights such as Glass, Riley and Reich. Adding these tendencies to the often self-important navel-gazing of indie-folk ain't always the best idea.

Fortunately, here he marries them superbly to a songwriting style that favours impressions and moods over verses and choruses. All We Grow seeps and bleeds like water from a split vase across a thick tablecloth. Its patterns are subtle and slightly random, and their borders are easily lost against the white-on-white of sighing vocals, folksy strumming, lightly shifting percussion and impressively nuanced orchestrations. As such, it works best when it is allowed to figure itself out—hands-off listening lets each of these tunes become something a little different every time you hear them. It's a beautiful little session.

Now, that said, one can't help but feel that with just a little more cohesion in the songwriting department (something his employer could really help foster), All We Grow could, well, grow into something more than just avant-garde. But as a debut, it signals a major talent that had previously been lurking in the shadows. Where he goes from here could be 'scarey' indeed.