There’s more than an echo of Richard Thompson in Sam Carter’s adventurous third solo album, with its blend of pained or thoughtful songs and virtuoso guitar work. But while Thompson tends to separate his acoustic and electric projects, Carter constantly changes direction. He shows off his acoustic fingerpicking on the gently charming Our Kind of Harmony before switching to an amplified stomp on Taunting the Dog, with its reminders of last year’s triumphant collaboration with Jim Moray in False Lights. This is a bittersweet concept album, influenced by his time spent in London, and the songs range from the slow and personal From the South Bank to Soho, which features exquisite viola work from Sam Sweeney, to the remarkable Drop the Bomb, which starts as a gentle ballad backed by the piano of Neil Cowley (of Adele fame) and ends as a furious electric guitar workout.
