As the first band to play the American Music Awards unsigned by a record label, Richmond, Virginia-based indie-folk rockers Carbon Leaf is reviving their DIY self-produced culture in their first full-length album in a decade with Time is the Playground, greeting streaming services today September 27th, 2024.
The title track, “Time Is the Playground,” plays with poetic structure and experimental acoustic riffs, painting a nostalgic and hopeful soundscape. Maintaining a sense of childhood wonder with an adult’s sensibility, the song’s lyricism speaks on themes of optimizing one’s time around without considering too hard how it’s passing. “It moves right through and marches on / Make sure I’m worn before I fade,” sings Barry Privett, the band’s lead vocalist.
A throwback dating before the band’s formation in 1992, “Backmask 1983” and its official lyric video speaks of all the reminiscent pop-culture fads and social dynamics that filled the 1980s with neon lights while still holding space for their modern remodels. The song’s power-pop punk feel gives it a spunkiness much like the aura of the era, and Privett’s Blink-182 style vocals with an added twang fit admirably with the electric guitar’s circular riffs.
“You and Me,” the band’s last single before album release, recounts a love that didn’t see its committed expectations to fruition with emotionally-charged instrumentation carrying the vocals’ valid intensities. “Loves all it takes / ‘Till something breaks,” Privett admits, before breaking the fourth wall in the tune’s music video and pushing the moving qualities of the song even further. Despite its concentration on loss, there is a sense of enduring that seeps through the melodies regardless.
Gliding in with a beautiful alternating guitar stanza, “California Gold” houses musical cleverness as it switches between intro, verse, and chorus. As free-flowing lead guitar follows Privett’s vocals with a rich, warm vintage tone, the band paints a picture of playful curiosity, calling, “All we have is time / Lay it all down the line / Find the missing pieces as we go.”
Captured in the band’s home-built Two-Car Studio, Time is the Playground marries nostalgic storytelling with nuanced, folk-infused indie rock, resulting in a mature lightheartedness that situates itself between rational and winsome marvel. The fifteenth studio album of theirs comes after releasing a trio of charting albums with Vanguard Records, to whom the band said farewell to continue role modeling the impressive task of being a self-managed musical group.
“Everybody says people don’t listen to albums anymore,” states Privett via the band website. “So, the challenge for us was to make something that felt good to get through from beginning to end … to listen to like a story.”
Terry Clark, Carter Gravatt, Jon Markel, and Jesse Humphrey join Privett on stage and in the studio to form Carbon Leaf, where Clark serves as the group’s studio engineer. A common routine for these seasoned musicians with over 3,500 shows under their belt since their inception as a college cover band, the release of Time is the Playground will send Carbon Leaf on an extensive tour, that started in St. Louis on September 25th, and ends in the band’s hometown of Richmond, Virginia, on December 18th of this year.
Photo by: Bee Two Sweet
