Review Summary: A tender trip down Main Street
In an age, not too long ago, as our parents fondly reminisced about their kindred adolescent years, various girl groups ruled the airwaves. During that time, groups like The Crystals, The Ronettes and The Supremes enchanted American audiences and provided our parents with the proverbial soundtrack to their young lives. America wasn't the only place though to be stung by the sweet voices of these sirens, oh no, continental Europe as well, was giving birth to their fair share of teenage pop beauties with the likes of Françoise Hardy and France Gall innocently singing and pioneering yé-yé pop. Fast forward some fifty odd years and most listeners have become jaded and spoiled as the internet age has afforded us the luxury of being able to pick and choose what we listen to. Of course, wonderful in its own right, there is something nostalgic in letting the radio dictate what you were going to hear that day.
Enter The Carrots, an Austin sextet who set about bringing back those classic sentiments possessed by the aforementioned groups and styles. Beginning somewhere in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Veronica Otuño and her five colleagues are a breath of fresh air to pop's musical landscape. Albeit, offering nothing redefining or new, The Carrots instead focus on exactly that simple, vintage vibe that made everything look and sound so great, retrospectively, through today's rose-colored glasses. Released by the reliable Spanish indie pop label, Elefant Records; New Romance, conjures infectious hooks and delightful choruses, as a way to send us back in time to school rallies, teenage crushes and vinyl records.
Cuts like "Baby, You Don't Know", "Crystal Lake" and "Beverly" cleverly re-conceptualize teenage pop symphonies from days gone by. Driving your Chevrolet Corvair, Buick Wildcat or Chrysler Station Wagon looking for the nearest malt shop or better yet, a lake or beach to spend the endless summer days with the only thing that mattered in life during your youth--your significant other. The guitar chords on these playful arrangements are simple and evoke the sounds of 60's surf culture and Americana. The piano lines are whimsical and tie beautifully with the bouncy lyrics of the group. There is however, a dichotomy presented as the easygoing melodies of the songs sometime include lyrical content centered more on heartache over happiness. Other times, the lyrics and the melodies go hand in hand as the more ballad oriented songs like "You Can't Promise [Boys]" and "Moment In Time" both demonstrate the sympathetically soulful voice of Otuño while the backing harmonies remain mournfully in tune. The latter evoking sentiments that most, if not every, young adult has experienced sometime in their life as Otuño delicately sings in her ample vibrato, "Pieces of me had gone astray/Your shadow lingered everyday/Endlessly missed/The lips/I once kissed". They ring quite poignantly indeed.
What can be gathered by the twelve songs included on this LP is that The Carrots know how to craft catchy, danceable pop tunes. Veronica Otuño's voice ranges in style and tone harkening to greats like Ronnie Spector and Diana Summer. The production and instrumentation is clean, crisp and elegantly balanced offering a charming orchestration that reminds listeners of former greats like Phil Spector and his infamous 'wall of sound'. However, with all that said, The Carrots don't bring anything new to the table as mentioned before. No one song is over three minutes and the only time they deviate from the melodies presented within the first few bars of the song is when a chorus or bridge come along. While the touching lyrics, a highlight of the album, can be downright goofy at other times. All that being said, looking at the record as a whole, The Carrots present us with a modern take of what seemed so lovely and amusing in a time when everything was less connected, more isolated and overall, left an enduring mark in our hearts
