Album Review: Tyler Carter - 'Leave Your Love'

Just like how a lot of vocalists have some form of clothing line, they have an equal amount of side-projects. Some of these are full bands and other times they’re just solo projects, (check Matty Mullins of Memphis May Fire or Dan Campbell of The Wonder Years), which are big side steps from their usual work. So is the case with Issues frontman, Tyler Carter ( and let’s be real here, people prefer him over Issues screamer Michael Bohn). So when he’s not rapping or singing with his main band, or covering Paramore with drummer Luke Holland (from The Word Alive), he’s busting out some really poppy,  soft R&B club friendly tunes.

Well first things first, (no, I’m not the fucking “realist”), Carter can sing, in fact, he can sing pretty well. Yeah, there’s some editing and there's been a bit of over-production done here and there, but it’s nowhere near as bad as some other singers and bands. Plus, most of the time, you get his full, real voice and that's commendable. When you take this Fight Club-era Jared Leto lookalikes vocals with triggered synths and subs, occasional pitch-shifted vocals, decent but undeniably generic percussive loops,  ‘Leave Your Love’ is an okay EP. However, for a guy coming from a metalcore/post-hardcore band, it is a big departure, but maybe, just maybe his main band will be way more successful and impactful than this.

After all, most musicians don't like to be confined to one thing, but that one thing is them in a sense and when you move out of that space it's kinda like disassociating from your real self. Anyway, enough pretentious dribble, to the songs...

'Sophisticated' and the title track are...meh. They set the style and mood of the EP, but they can't live up to its final moments, but we'll get to that shortly. These first two offerings just feel lacklustre and too digestible, they don't really make you want to listen any further but push through and you find the hidden stash of goods.'Georgia’ changes things up a bit with some new arrangements and the song itself seems to be about being with someone (that you may or may not really care about) who’ll leave in the middle of the night/morning, so the lesson is…don’t have one-night stands? Good message and a decent song. Next! Now you've got ‘So Slow’, which is a rather cliché ode about relationships and it feels a little forced and cliche, also doesn't help it's a rather uninspired pop track either.

Tears On The Runway Pt. 1’ is a reference to the Issues song, ‘Tears On The Runway Pt. 2’  (from their debut album). Just like its counterpart song, there’s a guest appearance from Nylo (bonus points for knowing who this actually fucking is) and that they’re both loosely about some dude being friend-zoned over and over and over, but that’s where the similarities stop. It’s doubtful that this was a planned idea about releasing the second part first then the first one later on like the Star Wars movies. However, listening to the two back to back isn’t a complete picture, so it seems arbitrary that they have the same name. However, it’s not a bad song at all, in fact, this is the hidden goods mentioned before, but at this point it’s taken almost 15 minutes to get to something that's half-decent.

‘Find Me’, the EP's last song and final piece of the stashed away gold on this EP, is a song about family ties and was written for Carter's little brother so now that has way more personality than the rest of the EP put together. Thus, it's got more emotion than the rest of the release and it hits home way more, but again, it's too little, too late. Even though Tumblr die-hards will lap this EP up and post lyric designs of it like it's a line from La Dispute's fucking 'King Park'.

If you find Issues unbearable then this may give you a reason to pause and appreciate them slightly more, or hate them even more, depending on your POV. But don’t hold your breath for too long, as it’s every clean chorus and hook of Issues just minus every instrument except for Carter’s voice with more accompanying synth. Going into this EP, you should know it’s different and a lot more poppy than Carter's day-job and realise that this review never mentioned Woe, Is Me until just now.

1. Sophisticated

2. Leave Your Love

3. Georgia

4. So Slow

5. Tears On The Runaway Pt. 1 (Feat Nylo)

6. Find Me