By Jeremy Azevedo

In Los Angeles and the surrounding area, there are basically two radio stations (KROQ and Indie 103.1) struggling for dominance. The two stations couldn’t be farther apart in terms of style and presentation, and as such, you will rarely, if ever, hear the same song being played in regular rotation on both stations.

Despite this fact, Carolina Liar has managed to squeeze into the top 10 most requested bracket of both stations with their hit single. “I’m Not Over”. What it is about Carolina Liar that makes them appeal to both audiences is hard to describe, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Singer/songwriter Chad Wolf is not the typical LA musician, doing whatever it takes to get a record deal. He’s an honest to goodness regular dude from South Carolina that spent much of his adult life up until now honing his craft in coffee houses and doing odd jobs in exchange for studio time. In order to find the relevancy in his music, he one day ups and moves to Sweden, where he fits right in with his long blond hair and melancholy disposition.



Fast forward a few months and C. Wolf is back in LA with a the only Swedish band from this decade that isn’t into black metal (the Hives excluded) and a stellar album of material that calls to mind sounds of New Wave, traditional Southern Rock and a dash of Indie as interpreted by North Atlantic Europeans.

As an album, “Coming To Terms” represents the disparate influences mentioned above on a number of songs. The first single, “I’m Not Over” reminds me of Kings of Leon’s earlier stuff... It’s a great “Hillbilly Strokes” southern garage rock jam that forces it’s way into your brain from the first listen, and truly a memorable song. “Last Night” is another favorite, sounding to me a bit like The Cars, one of my favorite bands and one that is hardly ever referenced by bands these days. It’s clear that Carolina Liar is not trying to play the same kind of music that most of their peers are doing, like they lived in some sort of musical vacuum during the recording process, because, in actually, they sort of did.

Score: 8 out of 10
1 if you ever wondered what Swedish Skynard U2 New Wave Killers Clearwater and the Hearbreakers Revival would sound like. And who hasn’t, really?
-1 if you mistook the name “Carolina Liar” to be another one of the 5 million precociously “indie” hipster chicks putting out albums this year (i.e. Katy Perry, Sara Bareillis, Kate Voegele, Feist, Duffy, etc.)