In Silence

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Americans who never caught a whiff of Marc Carroll's work before the release of his In Silence anthology have a pretty good excuse: his records had never been made available in the U.S. before. The Irish-born singer/songwriter has been plying his trade since the early 2000s, but for many, In Silence -- which collects cuts from his previous albums as well as EPs -- will mark their first meeting with Carroll's work. He's a tough one to pin down, especially on a collection that leaps with impunity across his discography. His folk roots are made plain not only by a cover of the traditional British folk song "Matty Groves," but by the man-and-guitar solo acoustic cut "Press On" and the Dylan-esque inflections on "What's Left of My Heart." At the same time, the looped-sounding percussion behind his earthy Irish burr and acoustic picking on "Always" puts him in the company of folk-rock-influenced modernists like David Gray, while the plangent electric guitars and ominous thump of "Love Over Gold" show that he can rock it up when he wants to, and the ambitious-but-superfluous instrumentals that bookend the album -- the wispy, guitar-driven "The Boy Who Dreamed" and the throbbing, bass-heavy "In Reverse" -- indicate a willingness to experiment, even if the way ahead is uncertain. What's never uncertain, though, is Carroll's sure-footed way around a melody -- for all the folk-rock flavoring, there's a classic pop sensibility at the root of his songwriting which puts him a step ahead of many of his peers. ~ J. Allen