A hauntingly beautiful collection of the 10 songs that create Carrousel’s latest album truly depicts their theme of “the fraught dystopia of life and the spiraling process of depression, both within an individual and a nation”.

Carrousel is a Los Angeles-based duo consisting of Joel Piedt and Sharon Piedt. Magnificent Desolation, their debut album, is part of a four-part series in which Joel seeks to pay homage to his hometown in Memphis. “Since moving away from the South, the region has become intrinsic to the band’s identity and music: remembering Memphis as childhood, as allegory, as the origins of blues, soul and rock-n-roll and, like folklore, as Eden — a place that will outlast what it is and what it was and become a destination wherein to return: Memphis as beauty, Memphis, even, as Heaven.”

The way in which each song in this album is composed, Carrousel’s wordplay, and the exploration of genres in this work will lead you to ponder your own sense of being. Take the final songs on the album, “Scream” and “Feel Like Going Home”, for example. The stark contrast between the strong vocals of Sharon and the rock influence behind the main part of the former track to the abrupt transition of a piano leading to their last song “Feel Like Going Home”. Thisa sudden shift is almost reflective to how quickly our daily routine can change.

Life is unpredictable. Each sequential hoop we jump through leads us to an unknown future. Such is the case with the entirety of Magnificent Desolation. The seamless transitions between songs of completely different energies are a metaphor of how almost chaotic existence is. An “illusory future” is how the sound of this album is described. Just as Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942) walks into the clouds as he wonders what his future holds, so too does the listener after hear the last track in this album.

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