Life on planet Earth is a funhouse maze of emotions\u2014one day you\u2019re giddy, the next impossibly sad. And then you pick yourself up and put one foot in front of the other again, because really, what\u2019s the alternative? Life is precious; savor every drop you can.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee trio Trolley\u2014Michael Perotto (guitars, keyboards, vocals, production), Paul J. Wall (guitars, vocals), and Terry Hackbarth (bass, guitar, vocals)\u2014were deep into production on the group\u2019s fifth album when Perotto passed away suddenly at just 47. After absorbing this devastating blow, Hackbarth and Wall resolved to finish and release the album-in-progress, recruiting producer\/mixer Shane Olivo onto the project and dedicating the resulting album to \u201cour friend and sonic architect\u201d Perotto.<\/p>\n
Those circumstances inevitably color how one receives A Carnival Of Grey & White<\/i>. It\u2019s an album that ends up functioning well as both celebration and elegy.<\/p>\n
Trolley\u2019s music is defiantly, lovingly retro, a pastiche of British Invasion \/ Mod-era backbeats and jangly New Wave power-pop, decorated with blasts of Hammond organ, with flares of punk and psychedelia woven into the mix. Despite wearing their influences on their sleeves, Trolley makes modern music, casting fresh new tunes in the mold of classic forms.<\/p>\n
At 13 tracks and 42 minutes, Carnival<\/i> is a tight, hard-charging set that\u2019s fairly evenly split among the three singer-songwriters.<\/p>\n
Perotto\u2019s four cuts lean into the psychedelia component of Trolley\u2019s sound. On the title track, driving guitars still leave room for swirling space-outs, while \u201cShiny Car\u201d features psychedelic flair, abundant drive and late-Beatles vocals in equal measure. Later on, \u201cStarlight\u201d offers a brighter, rather sing-songy plea for the object of Perotto\u2019s affections to dump her guy, while \u201cThe Face You\u2019ve Brazened\u201d swerves from dream into nightmare.<\/p>\n
Hackbarth\u2019s affection for Elvis Costello comes to the fore on \u201cRadio Silence,\u201d a headlong number about the agony of getting ghosted by someone you still care about. His \u201cFirst Day Of Your Life,\u201d by contrast, is all early rock guitars-and-harmonies sweetness.<\/p>\n
Wall\u2019s numbers tend to pump up the punk and New Wave elements of Trolley\u2019s sound, especially the Costello-flavored drive of \u201cDo It For The Girl\u201d and the early-Clash fever of \u201cSteppin\u2019 Up.\u201d On the flip side, \u201cFather Time (Will Take)\u201d finds Wall delivering a chiming, upbeat weeper about how time takes everything away, even love, and \u201cI\u2019ll Never Tell\u201d shares Hackbarth\u2019s affection for early rock guitars-and-harmonies.<\/p>\n
A trio of album highlights are co-written by Hackbarth and Wall. \u201cAs Long As I Can Find You\u201d is an upbeat, pushing love song featuring unison vocals on the chorus and guest Betty Strigens joining in on vocals. \u201cLeaving You Behind\u201d features a pushing beat and abundant attitude; it\u2019s tight, short, and sweet. Finally, they close out the album in fine form with \u201cSince The Drugs Wore Off,\u201d a strummy number with guitar counterpointed by Hammond that feels both sad and celebratory as they sign off with these lines: \u201cYou can\u2019t feel nothing since the drugs wore off \/ Haunted by the loss \/ It\u2019s not the same since they disappeared \/ Living here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five different drummers provide the steady backbeats behind the trio, with Jon Phillip featured on eight of the 13 tracks. Other featured guests include Nicholas Berg (keys) and Andrew Eshbaugh (trumpet), who each bring added dimension to the music.<\/p>\n
In the end, A Carnival Of Grey & White<\/i> feels like the most stirring eulogy you could imagine for the Perotto-Wall-Hackbarth team, a set of well-crafted, unapologetically retro tunes played with genuine fire and commitment. Whatever the future may hold, these three singer-songwriters seized the moment while the moment was there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10243],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-47282","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-trolley","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47282"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47282"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}