Review Summary: Carus knows how to capture a crowd with power, emotion and bring a tear to the eye, yet release them with uplifting and motivating songs that will keep your feet tapping for days to come.
Okay, close your eyes and begin to imagine you’re on the rugged landscape of Australia’s surfcoast, travelling along the world famous Great Ocean Road, and stopping every kilometre to hit up the amazing beaches, the rolling left hand surf breaks and the picturesque towns dotted along the great road. Now think to a Saturday night in a surfcoast pub with a couple of beers and some live music. And now you begin to wonder, where the heck is he going with this? So I will tell you where. To some of the greatest acoustic music in the Australia, where you find some of the best blues/roots/reggae artists in Xavier Rudd, Rob Sawyer and Carus, who is one of the best.
Carus (full name Carus Thompson) is a man of wonderfully eccentric stories and musicianship that has made a name for himself by creating an intoxicating atmosphere with his easy listening music when he graces the stage during his live shows.
Line up for Acoustic at The Norfolk:
Carus Thompson: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Dave Johnson: Mandolin and additional guitar
Adam Gore: Violin
Jean – Guy Le Mar: Harmonica
Acoustic At The Norfolk is a live show played in his home town of Fremantle, and begins with the truly sad song ‘Tall Buildings,’ which is a narrative about when Carus first moved away from his home in Fremantle and became depressive living in Melbourne, though he kicks out of this slow and miserable state by following up with some impressive and danceable reggae tunes, non more danceable then ‘Big Brother,’ with Dave Johnson playing some amazing riffs on the mandolin. Though then things slow down again with ‘Kurt Cobain.’ Which gives a very emotional insight into Cobain’s life and his death, however, an uplifting track ‘One More Time’ with obvious blues roots, follows to brighten the mood. This is one of the more quicker songs on the album, and will get your feet tapping, clapping, and once you learn the words, singing along to the catchy chorus and funky bridge.
Carus, along with the large proportion of folk singers in Australia (Paul Kelly, Xavier Rudd) sing about the mistreatment of the native indigenous people. ‘Yangi’ is a superb example of this. Set as a cheery sounding song to hide the tribulations behind the music, this is done with Dave Johnson playing an upbeat melody on the mandolin as Carus sings the majority of the song in an aboriginal language, and then Carus translates one line being, “My home burning in flames.” This magnifies the horror that the indigenous people went through when the first white settlers came, as they came and destroyed anything in the way to build and expand.
‘Grow to Overgrow’ opens up the second disc, being a song about his hate for the previous government and their view on marijuana (which after a time becomes obvious that Carus is quite the pot smoker). This is a reggae felt tune and Carus adds some annoying ‘reggae scat’ which annoys the heck out of me, since he really isn’t any good at it and it sounds like a baby farting in a microphone, making this song quite easy to skip. Thankfully the beautiful and inspiring ‘I Can’t Get Enough’ follows not soon after, it is just Carus and his guitar. He sings a deep and heart lifting melody about a childhood love. Even if the cliché love song lyrics are a bit overdone, the basics of this song make it wonderful and intricate and one of the best on the album. ‘Floating With The Sun’ is another upbeat folk song which links straight into ‘Wild’ which doesn’t really do anything for me, it sounds just like any other average folk song, and you begin to wonder if Carus has run out of unique and original ideas, then thankfully, another quite admirable and charming song ‘You Were Gone’ weaves its magic, and you again restore your faith in Carus.
The closing track ‘Thrown’ is yet another mystical ballad not unlike ‘I Can’t Get Enough’ but a much more sombre, yet bright track, about a man being confused with his life and it is at the cross roads and not sure where to take it. Once again it’s Carus on his own with a guitar, giving up one of the most raw and emotional sounding tracks of the album. The crowd are completely still, making not a sound for the whole length of the song, in awe of the beauty of it.
This album shows why Carus is one of the best folk singers in Australia at the moment. He knows how to capture a crowd with power, emotion and bring a tear to the eye, yet release them with uplifting and motivating songs that will keep your feet tapping for days to come.
Recommended Tracks:
‘Thrown’
‘I Can’t Get Enough’
‘Yangi’
‘Big Brother’
‘One More Time’
