Carolina Liar Releases LP

By Connect2Mason Director Grace Kendall. Photographs by Hilary Walsh, Courtesy of Carolina Liar

Carolina Liar is putting it all out there with their debut album, Coming to Terms. Full of straightforward lyrics and steady guitars, it’s a strong opening effort from the California-Stockholm based band.

Sounding a bit like The Killers and The Bravery, Carolina Liar takes use of lead singer Chad Wolf’s deeper voice and mixes it up nicely with a collection of simple guitar riffs and sweeping keys. Press materials and online attention for the band definitely explore Carolina Liar as a Wolf-fronted project with a Swedish backing band, which is a shame because, although Wolf is co-songwriter for every song on the album, the instrumentalists are talented and really make the songs worth listening to, even when the lyrics aren’t at their best.

The CD opens with “I’m Not Over,” the band’s first single which has gotten a fair amount of attention from being featured on MTV’s The Hills, and for good reason: it starts the album on such a positive note that the rest of the songs have a hard time keeping up.

Carolina Liar is at its best on songs with a driving beat; in slower songs, the weaker lyrics gain more attention and falter. In “All That Shit Is Gone,” the introspective power of the first two verses is lost within a chorus that simply shouts the song title multiple times.

Lyrically, “California Bound” is one of the best songs on the album, with cleanly-worded questions like, “You feel alive / At least you think that life is something in you / What do we know?” and a rollicking chorus that will make you want to head to the west coast.

The real standout track, though, is “Last Night.” The chorus is an energy-charged exploration of a one-night stand, with the drums, bass and strong electric guitars holding the beat down while the keyboard runs up and down around the lyrics.

The rest of the album is a collection of songs that are hit-or-miss; “Beautiful World” follows its own advice with the lyrics, “Keep it real, keep it simple” to great success, while “Show Me What I’m Looking For” could do without the distracting bells, but benefits from an added choir.

Coming to Terms is not an album so much as a variety of nicely written songs with strong instrumental support; though the CD is good, new fans may be better off buying singles from iTunes to acquaint themselves with the band.