Richard BodinDuring our last interview with Carsie Blanton, she announced a new album in collaboration with The Burning Hell ahead of their upcoming European tour. Everything is Great came out last week and the least I could say is that it reflects a magic chemistry that seems to be uniting the American singer and the Canadian band.
Both acts met a couple years ago when The Burning Hell opened for Carsie Blanton for a gig on Prince Edward Island. According to Carsie, they just fell in love with each other, as they shared political beliefs and musical interests. With both acts tendency to use humour to pass down a political message in inspired protests songs, one could expect a funny and vitriolic album. And this is just we got, in the form of an odd concept: a muppet musical.
Smiling at the Apocalypse
The first things that pops to our attention of course is the cover, designed by Ariel Sharratt. The artwork features a nefarious collage of some of the worst evil figures of our times all sharing a laugh, under the watchful eye of Sauron. Above them various flying machines of death are crowding the skies. In contrast, a pink bubbly funny font spells the album’s title: “Everything is Great”. It give a fantastic vibe of fun satire to come as long as the needle hits the groove.
The opening title track stages Mathias Kom and Carsie Blanton sharing a phone conversation. Mathias calls his friend Carsie, worried about her in a country where things “seem a little… weird”. The optimistic Carsie replies that “Everything is fine”, that everybody agrees that things are wrong but nobody wants to talk about it. The tone is light —and ironic or course— without being uplifted. A nice soft opener, setting up the tone: satirical, political and funny… As expected.
Songs of Satire and Resistance
“Peace & Freedom” then starts with a more punk and electric mood. The lyrics highlight the hypocrisy of a country denouncing “political violence in America” while displaying all the means to oppress people or export violence elsewhere to spread Peace & Freedom to everyone. The message is reinforced by an electric Star Bangled Banner resonating during the bridge and a quote by Sen. Chuck Schumer closing the track.
After such a strong debut comes a quirky song that definitely fit the concept of the album. “Stafford Beer” is a more playful tune staging puppets-like voices. It sounds like an educational song like you would see on the Muppet Show. Of course it is funny to imagine such an educational song with lyrics explaining how a system doesn’t work to make people happier, but the further its own power.
Dancing Through the Revolution
The rest of the album is filled with various musical styles, and excellent tracks. “Price Of Eggs” explores a musical universe that is reminiscent of a Tim Burton claymotion movie. The lyrics enumerates daily issues wondering “what are we gonna do about it”, from the price of eggs to capitalism, with solution ranging from the strong worded letter to a full blown revolution. A line which refers to a popular slogan in the May 68 revolts in France achieves to win me over: “Under the paving stone… la plage!”
I must admit, this is not the only thing that will make the French revolutionary in me vibrate to sound of Carsie Blanton & The Burning Hell. “Hoist The Guillotine” is an obvious win for me. In the lyrics Joe Plowman sings about using said guillotine on milliardaires like Elon Musk, Zuckerberg or Bezos, because “them billionaires ain’t work a hill of beans”. As we say in France: we can’t make a omelette without breaking eggs. And well… you can’t make a revolution without rolling a few heads… Too extreme maybe ? Meh…
Now, if the french revolutionnary in me felt something, the anarchist definitely loved the next song “Canadian Flag”. There, the band imagine a Boy Scout or a Girl Guide being stuck in the woods with nothing else between them than a Canadian Flag and ask them: what do you do. As burning a flag is frowned upon, the only obvious solution is to rip apart your best friends for fuel and sustenance. Vitriolic and dark humour just as I like it.
Nothing Is Fine (And That’s the Point)
I don’t want to spoil it any further for you dear reader, so I won’t get through all the lyrics and songs. You get the point: Carsie Blanton & The Burning Hell‘s chemistry has hit my sweet spot with a songwriting mixing humour and politics with brilliance. Musically they dabble in many different genres. With mostly folk vibes, they explore different horizons: sometimes bossanova, tango, ballades, sometimes a little punk…
Beyond its sharp writing or its stylistic playfulness, what ultimately makes Everything is Great land so effectively is the balance it strikes between absurdity and sincerity. Beneath the jokes, the biting satire, and the occasional outrageous line, there’s a very real sense of urgency running through the record. A feeling that laughter might be one of the last tools we have left to process a world that often feels beyond repair.
Carsie Blanton & The Burning Hell don’t pretend to have the answers. Instead, they invite us to sit with the contradictions, to laugh at the chaos, and maybe, just maybe, to think a little harder about it all once the music fades. In a way, it opens the discussion to remake the world, plan, organise.
In that sense, Everything is Great lives up to its title in the most ironic, and most honest, way possible: nothing is fine, but at least we can still sing about it together, and… we could talk all night.
