Carolina Story Journeys Through Pain and Redemption with 'Colors of My Mind'
Colors of My Mind, the new album by husband and wife duo Carolina Story, isn't a concept album. But in many ways it feels like one, with the track selection moving the listener on a journey through hopelessness and pain, through glimpsed optimism, and finally to acceptance and, in places, even joy. While somewhat accidental, that's no coincidence as the duo was unwittingly at the time tracking the path their own life was about to take, with vocalist and instrumentalist Ben Roberts checking into rehab just days after the album was finished recording.
The pain of present is evident in the album's opening track, and first single, “Animal.” “What would you have me to do?” Ben asks, “What would you have me to say? Domesticated either way.” Driven by a slow and steady drum beat, the song seethes with barely restrained fury, the guitar, piano, and the crashing cymbals that enter late in the song underlining lyrics like “I'm just an animal roaming the hills/I look for blood, looking to kill”, later lamenting “Never going to satisfy these hunger pains.” If there was ever a line that told the truth of an addict in the last stages of denial before getting help, that line is it.
“Animal” is followed up by another album highlight, “It's a Drag.” A mid-tempo rocker, there's a feel of the early British Invasion in the instrumentation and phrasing, not the last time on Colors of My Mind that Carolina Story seems to channel the Fab Four. The tempo belies a song full of despair, noting “All this time/ lives run by/ and pay no mind/ to you and I/ The world spins round/ and stars burn out.”
By mid-album, and particularly “Don't Look Down on Your Dreams”, there's a glimpse of sun in the darkness. “Don't give in like they want you to/every day brings a brand new you” Roberts begins over a slowly strummed acoustic guitar. It's a song written in the deepest darkness of their career (Ben wrote and recorded the initial demo as a voice memo with no recollection of doing so). By the end of the song, the simple acoustic melody is replaced by an electric guitar solo that sounds like a soul being freed from a prison.
But it's “Painted Lady” that offers the album's best effort. This time it's Emily's turn to take the vocal reins, weaving a tale of a woman finding herself for the first time. “Painted lady/ there's no more need to wait/ your time here is done/ a cocoon is no cage/ The world for the taking/ with raindrops on your wings/ No woes, no master/ go on and go free.”
The adage “I've suffered for my art” is all too often a true one. Like everyone, artists suffer the pitfalls of life, sometimes bigger than others, sometimes just the normal pains of life. The secret to really good art is not in suffering more often or more deeply than others but in being able to find the commonalities that tie all the human sufferings, joys, and sorrows that make humans be human, and to put those things into relatable words. With Colors of My Mind, Carolina Story has found that common thread of humanity that we can all relate to.
Colors of my Mind releases on April 7. Get it at your favorite indie record shop.