Austin-based singer-songwriter Bill Carter’s ninth self-produced record, Innocent Victims & Evil Companions, is set to be released February 26th via Forty Below Records. It’s an album that’s thoughtful, reflective, real, dreamy, optimistic and jarring; with unblemished production, often poetic songwriting, adept instrumentation, including his six- and twelve-string acoustic guitar, harmonica and percussion work, not to mention a who’s who of guests (Charlie Sexton, Denny Freeman, John Mills among others) all present in spades.
Bluesy (and slightly hazy) lead off track “Black Lion” conjures a drug induced paranoia that can be partnered with the retro-flaired, horn-filled “Bughouse In Pasadena” that invokes unsavory characters in an equally unsavory setting. “Under lock and key twenty-four seven, like an animal in the zoo staring at the wall, talking to myself ain’t really nothing else to do blood stains on the ceiling, black widows behind every door.”
Finger snaps and harmonica provide the atmosphere to the changing musical landscape in “Feel Town” while Last Tear (Delaney’s Song)” is that impactful, hit you in the heart tune, that deals with whether a relationship is over or can stand the tests it endures. “Maybe time and a little space will bring us back to where we belonged in the first place.”
Melodically recalling great heartland rock (Springsteen, Petty, Mellencamp) “Recipe For Disaster” wonders how the “hope and the harmony” of the 60’s turned into the present while there’s a 70’s influence in “Missing Guru” which focuses on the swami convicted of abusing minors in an Austin ashram, a Spanish flair seeps into the story song of “Moscow Girl” while there’s an overall optimistic tone to the roots rocker, “Livin’ In It.” Rounding out the record is the groovin’, laid back “Fisherman’s Daughter,” “Solar Powered Radio,” an ode to the Austin radio station that inspired it and “Sooner Or Later” which details how whiskey and wine, guitar and blues influence getting his life on track.
During the fourteen tracks and fifty-nine minutes of Innocent Victims & Evil Companions, you take a journey through not only various musical landscapes, but emotional ones as well, becoming acquainted with characters as they deal with assorted issues in the past, present and future. There’s sadness, uncertainty and questioning, yet the album closes with the hopeful “No More Runnin’”, reminding us that when you encounter life’s difficulties you can persevere……something we all need to remember from time to time.
2015 was a very good year for music and if the first two months of 2016 are any indication, the same will be said by year’s end, with Bill Carter’s latest making an appearance on many a “best of” list.