Barton Carroll has gigged as a sideman with Crooked Fingers and Dolorean, but his releases serve a more singular muse. The arrangements on this third solo project are more traditional than 2006’s Love & War, and though his flights from high tenor to falsetto are more controlled, the performances are still emotionally unnerving. There’s a taste of Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s old-timey warble in his voice, but the sing-song melodies (which bring to mind northwest folkie Jim Page) and deliberate tempos are dramatic, and at times quietly unhinged.
The opening track’s country-folk-noir spells defeat with its languid portrait of aging resignation and reactionary fear of intimacy. Carroll’s songs anticipate relationships and the repercussions of fallout in a single thought. He’s fretful and begging on “Superman” and creepily threatening on “Burning Red And Blue”, but this seems to be two sides of the same broken character. His confidence shines briefly on “Brooklyn Girl” as he brushes aside hipper competitors, and his interest in history provides images of Berlin’s fall to the Russians for “Small Things”.
The accompaniment is mostly acoustic or quietly electric, though “Brace Yourself” and “Certain Circles” rise to shuffles, and “Ramona” rocks with organ, electric guitar and full kit drumming. Where Carroll’s earlier work challenged listeners with erratic instrumental sparseness, The Lost One fills the musical space more conventionally while still retaining an original blend of emotionally exposed lyrics, vocal eccentricities and dramatically slow tempos.