On his 2014 album The Breaks, Martin Carr sang, “I got no money in my pocket/But it’s a lucky life for me.” It was a suitably humble declaration from a musician who, as the mastermind of Merseyside psych-rock alchemists the Boo Radleys, briefly joined Britpop’s class of 1995 at the top of the UK album charts—and who has since steadfastly refused to cash in on 1990s nostalgia by hopping aboard the reunion-tour circuit. Whether under his bravecaptain moniker or his own name, Carr has favored a more low-key, home-brewed approach on an increasingly sporadic series of solo releases. The Breaks was Carr’s first full-length release since 2009’s Ye Gods (And Little Fishes), and after a half decade away, he understandably reverted to what comes naturally to him: jangly, effortlessly melodic pop tunes sourced from the Rubber Soul/Forever Changes school of baroque ‘n’ roll. But as Boo Radleys fans know, Carr is at his best when he does what comes supernaturally. Where many of their Britpop peers were content to just sound like the Beatles, Carr and the Boos strived to be the Beatles—that is, a restlessly experimental outfit that could draw on sounds and textures from beyond the rock canon and mold them into instantly familiar yet thrillingly alien pop songs.
The Breaks enjoyed a positive reception from the British press, but one harsh critique stands out: “To me it sounded like an old man playing old man’s music for old men.” And Carr wouldn’t disagree; he’s the one who said it. It’s natural for artists to be hyper-critical of their own work, but Carr’s comment comes more from a position of authority than insecurity—one colored, perhaps, by the fact that he’s just put out a solo record that reminds us he’s not only one of the most redoubtable tunesmiths of his generation, but one of its most adventurous sonic architects as well.
For Carr, the wake-up call came in 2016, when he both lost one of his musical heroes—David Bowie—and watched his country whip itself into a xenophobic fervor over leaving the EU. Inspired by Bowie’s Plastic Soul phase, he reemerged this past spring on Brexit day with “Gold Lift,” a sprightly synth-funk salvo that cheerfully skewered the nationalist rhetoric and one-percenter politics peddled by the likes of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. That song doesn’t feature on Carr’s new album, but its audacious, subversive attitude remains: With New Shapes of Life, Carr has come up with a suave, sophisticated, rhythmically robust pop record, but one whose surface swagger belies deep-seated feelings of disillusionment, self-doubt, and paranoia.
Amplifying that sense of instability is the temporally dislocating quality of Carr’s productions. His songs come overstuffed with detail—on the opening track alone, he draws on bongo-disco grooves, meditative prog-folk melodies, sci-fi-flick synthscapes, and random jazzy squawks. But, remarkably, he makes these clashing elements sound like complementary qualities, smoothing out the cracks with a 1980s art-pop sheen redolent of Prefab Sprout and mid-period Talk Talk. As he did with the Boos, Carr never lets his experimentation overwhelm or topple his song structures; he’s more interested in seeing what he can get away with in the confines of a four-minute tune.
The eight songs on New Shapes of Life clock in at a tidy half hour, and sometimes you wish he’d give himself the space to stretch things out further: The ruminative piano ballad “Future Reflections” feels like the extended build-up to a big moment that never quite arrives, instead leaving us with a dramatic open-ended question (“Will the mind betray the body, or will the body betray the mind?”) that feels like an unresolved cliffhanger. But for the most part, New Shapes of Life leads us down a yellow-brick-road path from solitude to splendor: On “The Main Man” Carr builds a minimal beat and acoustic strumming into a grandiose, 21st-century glam anthem that ranks among his best with the Boos; the reflecting pool of Wurlitzer tones that opens “A Mess of Everything” gives way to hand-drummed raga rhythms and a gilded gospel chorus.
With its ironically ecstatic chorus (“I’ve made a mess of everything!”), the latter song marks the moment where New Shapes of Life’s internal tensions hit a fever pitch—this is an exquisitely crafted album made by a man on the verge of breaking down. Carr has admitted that making the record waxed a heavy emotional toll that at one point required a doctor’s intervention, and nary a moment goes by here when he’s not pondering his past or fearing for the future. At several points, Carr references living a life “behind the glass”: On the tense, bass-buzzed “Damocles,” it’s an allusion to the invisible prison of living with mental illness; on the spirited saunter of “Three Studies of the Male Back,” it’s a comment on the narcotic, disassociating effects of screen addiction. But the album’s most striking visual metaphor comes on “The Van,” which could pass for a string-swept early-1970s McCartney serenade, if the former Beatle had been wracked by an existential crisis. “Lost myself in the tall grass of time/Fixate on the errors of my past,” Carr sings, before delivering a dispiriting chorus—“Keep on ‘til the van comes/To take me away”—that speaks to both the drudgery of a touring musician’s life and the inevitability of death. But whether Carr’s trapped staring out a window, at a screen, or into a mirror, the vibrant, vivacious sound of New Shapes of Life presents him with a big, brightly colored brick to smash the glass.
