Spotlight On…..Al Carr

Al Carr started playing in Sydney bands in the late 90s before a move to Melbourne in 2006 led to the start of a solo career that began in 2013 with his self-titled EP (featured guest appearances from Davey Lane (You Am I) and Louis Macklin (Jet), followed by the albums Gutter Truth (2017) and Empty Skies (2021) which included pedal steel by Shane Reilly (Lost Ragas).

Now Carr backs up those releases with his strongest set of recordings to date, the exquisite, diverse and poetic album The Right Dereliction.

“Al Carr is able to cross country and rock music with ease with a sensibility that evokes a road trip across regional Australia. His rich emotional voice always does it for me.”
Crispi, Radio City on PBS

The first taste of the new album was the single ‘The Rose of Jericho‘, which premiered on Radio City on PBS and online with Backseat Mafia. It’s a song that rides on a gently propulsive rhythm section. It’s a rock song in the way that Tom Petty writes rock songs – richly melodic with a widescreen atmosphere and spiralling, jangling country-rock guitars. Carr pushes and pulls his vocal with a strain of warm and emotive melancholy.

Now Carr turns the spotlight to the album’s opening track ‘Sinking Moon‘, the song that he considers the centrepiece of the record.

“This is the song around which the rest of the tracks were built,” Carr explains, describing the song as “words of advice, take it or leave it, forewarning from one friend to another, with a Fender Rhodes providing some sparse melodic accompaniment.”

It’s a song that thrives on an unhurried strum, some tasteful lead guitar work, and the blend of Carr’s lead vocal and the backing of Simon Maiden. It’s the perfect example of Carr finding the balancing point between alt-country and classic singer-songwriter rock—nuanced, heartfelt and literate.