Carter Brady’s Shopping Cart is full of feel good songs that sound great and are a real throwback to the vibe and ethic of the 90s and early 00s.
There’s a few tracks that stick out to me on this album. I really like Grocery Store for its up-beat, swingy temp and jazzy chord progression. The melody is also nice, and fairly interesting. It’s got a laid back feeling that makes me want to tip my hat down and snap my fingers. The bass also jumps out to me. Tubey, fat bass lines always get me in a good mood.
Fit In is another track I thought of as noteworthy in this collection. I really liked the vocals and melody in the chorus. This song’s got a lot of cool vocal melody ideas, where the strong note holds onto an odd/out-of key pitch that I think gets the moan-y, depressing vibe across really well. The drum beat is also awesome, with a killer change in fills and pacing during the guitar solo, and the acoustic breakdown after the bridge I think does a good job at keeping the song interesting, and emotionally balanced.
I would consider Suppressed to be in the same league as the two aforementioned tracks. This is the sound I remember being exposed to in the 90s and 00s. It’s got a Smashing Pumpkins kind of aesthetic, mainly because of the thick, dense electric guitar bits in the choruses. This sound is pretty well balanced with the lightening of the guitar bits during the verses, which I like.
To me, this is a good throwback album. If you’re wondering what people were rocking to a couple of decades ago, this is a good album to listen to. Not because it directly copies or sounds exactly like any particular band from that era, but because the sound and the accompanying promotional materials really align with the time period.
It captures the zeitgeist, but has a new twist on it. Mainly through the guitar work. There are periods in this album where the guitar playing is more simplified, in terms of chord choices and strumming, when compared to some of the old tracks I remember from the era (e.g. Possum Kingdom, Today).
But there are also some tracks where the chord choices differ from the standards of the time, and provide a new approach to create the same aesthetic. As I mentioned earlier, Grocery Store has a really interesting progression and beat that has a more dancy, jazz feel than a lot of the tracks from a few decades ago, but the slacker, grocery store clerk ethic is still there. And I think a lot of that is delivered through the guitar work. Like I said, in some ways, there is a simplification in this album in the chords and strumming. But that’s not to say that this is an album of simple compositions.
There are a lot of complicated arrangements, and very strategic timings for when the guitars come into the song, when solos are inserted, when there’s an acoustic, instead of a fuzzy electric.
And there’s a definite feeling of a bedroom guitar player turned pro to this album. That is to say, there’s a lot of independent spirit and determination in this album. There’s also a lot of expressions of a type that I don’t think is communicated in a lot of modern pop music.
There is a suburban, independent, free-thinking, do-it-yourself ethos emanating from this really well composed, produced, and performed album. If you’re a fan of song-writing guitarists, I would definitely recommend this album, especially if you were a fan of some of the big time acts of the late 90s. This is the kind of thing they were doing all the time.
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About the Author
Music fan since circa 2017. Couple of degrees from The University of Virginia. Got a band too! But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to help you find your next favorite tracks and albums. Check out my articles if you need a quick pitch.
