MACKIN CARROLL – EP REVIEW

Mackin Carroll – Damascus EP 
Mackin Carroll - Damascus EP


Release Date: Out Now

The first thing you need to know about this EP is that this is solo consumption. Don’t throw this on at a party and expect it to improve the mood. Now, that’s not to say it’s bad, quite the opposite. Before the first track was over I could tell this was a beautiful, heartfelt and honest musician making music for individuals, not the masses all at once. That first track for example, ‘Ashes On The Bridge’, is a Dylan-esque lament about a flyover and Carroll’s desire to have his ashes scattered from said structure when he dies. It contains a morosely strummed acoustic guitar, Carroll’s rich voice and the occasional accompaniment of a female vocal – nothing else. The EP was essentially recorded live and raw which only adds to the honesty and beauty of the piece.

I guess what I’m saying is that Mackin Carroll could be that illegitimate child that Llewyn Davis sires but never meets on screen, such is his talent and ability to make a lament feel like a warm, familiar blanket of regrets. “I hope that I grow old so that I can see my kid feel better than me”, for instance, is the closing line of ‘Cigarettes & Fatherhood’ which is a masterful piece of song writing about past and future regrets and anxieties in the mould of Evan Dando on a really bad day. The final part of this trio is ‘Sleepwalking’ which heads back to Bob Dylan for inspiration with its semi-spoken, semi-drawled vocal performance and jittery guitars. Call it folk, call it Americana, call it singer-songwriting; I just call it great and possibly the least fake thing to come out of LA…ever.



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