Vinnie Caruana
City by the Sea EP
I Surrender / Run for Cover
This guy’s got a classic rock and roll screamer voice: rough around the edges, a bit forced on the highs, but nice and angsty when he’s singing his heart out. Six cuts here, a bit long for an EP, not quite an album. The press stuff puts him in Long Beach, NY dealing with the aftermath of Sandy, but dedicating himself to staying in the area. The songs have quirky lyrics. Take “Boy, You’re in Heaven.” Here he reports “miles and depressing miles of depressing tombstones and flower shops.” He warps the idea around a simple love song with a basic acoustic guitar, tambourine, and florid organ line. and I must admit it’s an original angle.
In “If I’m Battleship You’re the Northern Lights” he complains about his health insurance before he gets to the romance, and in the title track there’s a house burning down. Should we call the fire truck or let this be the final staging for a failed affair? Whatever he decides is cool. His voice fascinates, his parallels between a failing personal life and a failed city are clever, and even his imagery of “burning flowers to fill your tires” makes an odd sort of sense.
Vinnie Caruana: http://www.facebook.com/vinniecaruanamusic
