4 out of 5

Label: Black Bus Records

Produced by: Carpenter Brut

Yeah, this is the one where Carpenter Brut – Franck Hueso – first really stepped forward to carve out their spot in the darkwave genre they arguably popularized. While the first CB EP absolutely was a mic drop on the genre, gathering up the scene’s 80s horror / sci-fi influences and spinning them through a video gamed washing machine of club-ready, industrial beats, it was also kind of a “what do you want this to sound like?” approach in my mind – somewhat fulfilling the fullest of our expectations instead of blowing past them. It also leaned a bit more heavily on dancey stuff than my preference, which made a split in the EP’s sound.

Carpenter Brut II is absolutely still danceable, but the compositions feel approached more holistically and not just the immediate nostalgia / feel-good / booty-shakin’ vibes of CB I. Checking the song titles, and hearing the reliance on synths and samples, we’re also still set in the world of classic horror / sci-fi, I’d just say these tunes start to tell their own stories – CB starts to sound like a band.

The sequencing also really sells this approach, barreling out with some full-throttle, punky BPMs, but that does necessitate a breather mid-album that’s a bit of a slump in the originality expressed overall, until the EP recovers and broadens for some really amazing closers.

So: our openers Roller Mobster and Meet Matt Stryker are, both, all-timers. Although EP I’s opener is instantly identifiable as Brut nowadays, these two tracks I think represent more how his sound has grown, while also just being bad-ass in various ways, sounding cool and funky, and resplendent with a lot of organic sounding instrumentations.

Obituary is the slump I mention: it’s a good, moody break after the first songs, but doesn’t really evolve the sound or offer anything new to the genre. It’s well composed and well sequenced, for sure, only less original. Followup Looking for Tracy Tzu follows suit, initially, but the back half of the song breaks out with some exciting layers, setting us up for another pair of all-timers at EP’s end; closer Hang ‘Em All tops any previous mic drops, but not so much because it rocks – though it does – rather for how it shows off a sort of emotional potential to this style. You get some good feelies from the synth ebbs and flows.

In context, an awesome step forward for CB.