Review Summary: Carey uses excellent techniques in layering his music, with some very creative percussive elements as well as piano/vocal melodies. “All We Grow” is a beautiful statement from an overlooked musician.
After the first Bon Iver album was released in 2008, Justin Vernon picked up multi-instrumentalist Sean Carey to strengthen the band’s live sound. Sean Carey was a perfect fit for the band; he was primarily a percussionist, with a great voice that matched well with Vernon’s, as well as piano capabilities. Carey and the other Bon Iver band members were able to flesh out Vernon’s music, and inspire a whole new array of sounds that would eventually lead to the release of their sophomore LP, “Bon Iver, Bon Iver”.
But stepping back, playing live with the band immensely helped Sean Carey’s musical career. The experience must have taught him a whole lot about the nature of live performance, as well as learning how to collaborate with other talented musicians. Between Bon Iver tours, Carey would return to his home in Wisconsin and record his own music. The result was “All We Grow”, a nine-track album (with one bonus track, just like the first Bon Iver release) that is particularly beautiful and diverse in both soundscape and instrumentation. Perhaps it is not as diverse in regards to style and subject matter, but this is the type of album where that can be easily overlooked in favor of all of the music’s virtues.
This album’s best virtue lies in Carey’s excellent use of layering. Along with his calming voice and spacious timbre, this album is hard to dislike. The songwriting is impressive as well. The layering of piano, ambience, strings, vocals, percussion, and other sounds allows the music to be complex yet simple. That may sound a little confusing, but after hearing, you’ll understand what I mean.
“All We Grow” starts off with “Move”, one of the albums more simplistic songs. It’s driven by a finger-style acoustic guitar part, and the vocals cradle around the music in a shushed, lullaby-type of manner. The simplicity of this track is particularly soothing; it sets the stage for the album’s more complex songs. These include “We Fell”, “In the Dirt”, and “Broken”. The others are also layered, but not to the degree that those three tracks are.
“We Fell” features some of the most interesting and emotional piano layering and vocal overlaps/harmonies that I’ve heard out of any solo project. Carey’s voice is so un-obtrusive and accurate (pitch-wise) that his soft, driving lyrics almost demand to be harmonized over in complex ways. He utilizes his voice in amazing ways in this album, and “We Fell” is a prime example. Similar layering is applied to the following track, “In the Dirt” in a slightly less dynamic manner. Although this track is also piano driven, it does feature some new instrumentation, including handclaps, percussive noise, and what sounds like some wind instruments or horns.
With the fact being that this album does draw influence from indie as well as ambient and post-rock, there are a couple of instrumental transition songs to maintain the atmospheric feel of the work as a whole, as well as facilitate better album flow/momentum. Thankfully, Carey does not depend on these types of songs as heavily as some other artists of similar style do; it’s limited to “Rothko Fields” and “Action”, which are musically interesting in their own right. They are also vastly different from each other, which helps keep “All We Grow” from getting boring. “Rothko” is an ambient-style song that features strings, while “Action” remains more of an experimental rock track; with tribal-like drums driving under a strung-out guitar line.
One of the more accessible tracks seems to be “Mothers”, which also happens to be one of the more purposeful ones. The lyrics, about foreign children being forced into labor for the benefit of American consumers, provoke introspective thoughts, however dark the subject matter may be. Perhaps the bleakest part in the whole album is when Carey sings about how the kids can’t even go to school in the mornings. Why? “Because narcotics grow better than books”. If that line doesn’t hit home, the part where he sings about his sorrow for them, but his equal guilt in their suffering (undoubtedly as a result of enabling the narcotics production with his purchasing). After the final transition song, “Action”, we hear a track that has simplicity reverent to “Move” called “In the Stream”. Although similar in title to “In the Dirt”, it’s quite different in terms of mood and dynamics. The crooning vocals and background singing over the piano and bass drum are so emotional without the feeling of being contrived or exerting a lot of effort. The chorus-part, even though this album doesn’t really abide to the strict pop rules of verses and choruses, is pretty catchy (not really in a poppy way, but in a memorable way). Its simplicity serves it well in establishing itself among the other tracks.
The last two tracks were ones that I only recently listened to thoroughly. What I found was that one was a rather forgettable song, while the other became one of the strongest for me. I didn’t love the title track, “All We Grow”. In all honesty, everything about it is perfectly fine except for the electric guitar. For some reason, the tone doesn’t sound right. It isn’t well produced, but yet it doesn’t work as a lo-fi part. Everything about this album is the opposite of lo-fi. Every song is crystal clear and natural sounding, unlike this little guitar riff. It almost sounds as if Carey was trying to write a Bon Iver song, but it just didn’t work. The ending of the song redeems itself a bit with some piano and horns, at least. Still, this is the weakest track in my opinion.
“Broken”, the final song in Sean Carey’s debut album is a piano driven track (once again). However, the feel to this one is a little different. I definitely get more of a post rock vibe with this one; with the background slide guitar effects and romantic vocals. Towards the middle of the song, we start to hear beautiful layering with strings, xylophones, percussion, electric guitar, and piano. This is what Sean Carey seems to do best, and he makes sure he flaunts it in the final minutes of this album, and pulls together a strong and fitting close. The bonus track, “Leave”, has a darker mood, and is led by various acoustic guitar parts. The vocal style is a little different from the other songs; it’s darker, I’m not really sure how. The track is also layered nicely, and the latter half features some very pretty vocal melodies and effects
Being an outdoorsy person, much of Carey’s lyrics have to do with landscapes and nature. This album especially deals with outside settings, such as dirt, streams, weathered shores, and forests. A lot of it is simplistic, really, but I think it adds to his style. “Mothers” and “Broken” are the only two that seem to skew at all from the nature theme, and even those two tracks have a little bit of an “outdoorsy” feel to them too. “Broken” can even be considered a love song.
Carey uses excellent techniques in layering his music, with some very creative percussive elements as well as piano/vocal melodies. Sean Carey’s “All We Grow” remains a mysterious album to me, though I’ve listened to it thoroughly a good number of times. Each time, it seems like I catch something new; it’s definitely that type of album, because of the detail. It feels to me as if it serves as the link between the two Bon Iver albums. Since the band’s sound changed pretty considerably, from bleak/beautiful cabin folk to the fuller/brighter sound that it became, I like to consider “All We Grow” to be the mediator between them (with its crisp, clear production, yet with music that seems very isolated and lonely; in the best way possible). That being said, I feel as if Carey is still very much under the radar. Even though he’s in Bon Iver, he is not nearly as recognized as Vernon is. If anything, that just makes this album more beautiful. From my perspective, Carey seems very shy and non-obtrusive. This shows in his music. Unlike “For Emma, Forever Ago”, in which a good portion of the songs were clear-cut and to the point, “All We Grow” is so much more subtle. Does that make this album better? Not necessarily. There are points on this album that grow a bit weary, especially at the title track. But it’s hard to keep an album interesting for a long period of time with the style and mood that Carey was going for. But he did pretty well, considering that. I get the sense that Sean Carey is a musician who hasn’t reached his peak yet, and I’m excited to hear more from him.
8/10
Favorites- We Fell, In the Stream
Least favorites- All We Grow