Adam Carroll

Adam Carroll

In a weathered, comfortably rough and worn line drawn from Butch Hancock or Guy Clark, Austin's Adam Carroll possesses a sense for detailed narratives that unroll effortlessly behind a sing-talk style pushing against his limited range. A song like "Hi Fi Love," meanwhile, leans toward Sam Baker in its direct, unaffected poetics. Bookended by "Black Flag Blues," the local songwriter's fourth studio album opens acoustic, hearkening John Prine, while the final, hidden live version stomps a raucous, piano-driven breakdown à la Langhorne Slim. Balancing ballads of touching depth ("Sacred Love") with odes to rounders "snorting cocaine off a buck knife, three-two drinking, playing four-four time" on "Oklahoma Gypsy Shuffler," Carroll continually surprises with his delicate turns of phrase. Production kept sparse and raw, the focus remains on Carroll's excellent songwriting and viscerally charged voice. (CD release: Saturday, June 7, Saxon Pub.)