333maxwell - Carousel

Hear The Track Here

I am not by nature a hard reviewer, but I ain't a softy either. By God, I have my biases and preferences and I'm not scared of mentioning them from time to time (Ed: we humans know this as vacuous space filling). I am not know, for example, for clutching ballads to my puny bosom and in fact decimate most I hear. Takes a rare breed to make a ballad that I would like and 333maxwell has managed that at least. What (July 2008) is the not so offending article and is IMHO a very good introduction to what kind of musical ruckus Chas Holman (aka 333maxwell) make. Also, just as point of interest, 333maxwell is one of the over 100 artists on Soundclick from Zimababwe - a much troubled part of the world.

If all of that hasn't caught your interest maybe when I say this artist cites Captain Beefheart, Led Zepplin, Eric Clapton, Phil Silvers, Tiny Tim, Jimi Hendrix and The Singing Nun as influences you might buck up a bit. See, this artist really means that, as swift listen to any of his tracks will testify. Might as well as add George Harrison to that list to because Carousel has his sound all over it. Intentional or otherwise, it does give a listener a way into the track that they may not otherwise like. See, the 800lb pound gorilla in this conversation resides in this track being (yet another) ballad but again 333maxwell seems to slip this one under the mountain of predjudice I nurse about the genre.

I freely admit that a lot of that has to do with my own preference for good songs and clever, yet familiar settings and Carousel felt like an old friend on the first listen. Anyone even remotely touched by the whole Beatle sound will recognise much here and that makes it easy for casual listeners to latch onto. Essentially a track built around piano, nylon guitar and vocals, it is surprisingly powerful. Now maybe that is down to its familiar sound, or maybe its got more to do with the love and effort 333maxwell puts into it to make it work so well. I don't care either way because this is exactly the kind of track I would gobble up.

MUST HAVE nod of respect. Excellent.