Carmen Toth Delivers A Truthful Rock LP
If you're not yet too familiar with Carmen Toth, then let us be among the first to introduce you to the artist recently released a full LP that really expresses a lot of persona and where she comes from as a person, along with different sides to her artistry.
The record showcases a bright and vibrant sort of approach that breeds elements of pop rock, punk rock, singer-songwriter, hints of classic or vintage kinds of Aesthetics like '80s and '90s at times, and it's all rolled into this one huge record, giving you different pieces of her as you go along.
The album is called Fix The World, and wastes very little time getting straight to the point with its first track, "Pretty Dresses".
From the get-go you have some great guitar work that gives you that sort of pop rock feel with again, these elements of sort of '80s rock in the background, great guitar work all around, and you start getting her more robust kind of vocal approach coming in. Her singing has a lot of character, so you have different kinds of attitudes for the songs but as you listen through the whole record, you start to get a better understanding of who she is and you can tell that she's straightforward about everything.
These songs are like chapters from a book. They're actually more like chapters in her life, and you were able to read through them with her, so she takes you on this great and sort of detailed musical journey about her life and her perspective on things, how she feels about certain topics
This is an album that's completely unafraid and with no walls built around it, which is one of the more important aspects about the entire thing.
Songs like "Struggling" showcase this amazing honesty, speaking truths, and it's done with amazing guitar work. They have these great, bendy riffs that make you think of some underground '90s alternative rock approaches, and it gives the song a little bit of an edge.
These songs do have some edginess going on. They rock out when they want to, and it depends on what song it is, but you're definitely getting quite a punch with a lot of these tracks.
The song I'm talking about now has more of a progressive and post-rock sort of feel. There are elements of grunge involved, and you can sort of hear those classic '90s influences shining through.
As the album unfolds, you get some surprises around its corners, different messages, different parts of that character, and it all comes together like puzzle pieces.
"Ghost" is a track that gives you a lot of who she is, tells a great story, very personal feeling, and it's a cleaner, more singer-songwriter or even folk-inspired track.
It's in these types of songs that you can really pay more attention to how beautiful her vocals actually come through. She always has gorgeous vocals, but sometimes, when it's a punk rock or pop rock style track, you have a lot to soak in, whereas on songs like this, it's much more stripped down, acoustic, and elegant.
I love that she's not afraid to show a lot of that elegance throughout the record and bits and pieces.
You can even hear elements of Americana, to me. The last track on the record, "Looking Forward", gives you some of that. You just hear these sorts of hints of Southern twang in the guitar work and the way everything is performed.
This was a gorgeous record. Listening to it in full is the only way to go because only then can you really listen to all the chapters and stories that she's delivering.
This is an album meant to be heard from start to finish, and it's damn well worth your time to do exactly that.
Dive into this one as soon as you can and see what it does for you. Listen to her stories because she's very expressive, and I'm sure you'll end up connecting with some of them in different ways. I certainly did.
https://carmentoth.bandcamp.com