AMG Review of Who You Are

Tammy La Gorce
All Music Guide

Fans of spare, thoughtful indie rock have been awaiting Who You Are, Cary Brothers' debut full-length, since he stole moviegoer's hearts with "Blue Eyes," his simple but affecting contribution to 2003's Grammy-winning Garden State soundtrack. Their faith in the L.A. singer/songwriter was not misplaced, even if only a few songs on this 11-track disc are as capable of generating a goosebump epidemic. "Ride," a song that made it onto the soundtrack of another Zach Braff vehicle, #The Last Kiss, is one of them; "Jealousy," a navel-gazing pop track that issues from the honest, autobiographical-seeming place Brothers has a knack for writing from, is another. Elsewhere, Brothers' songs meander pleasantly, but they don't get close enough to bite. That's not to say he doesn't show signs of becoming a consistently mesmerizing performer, though. Occasionally, as on "If You Were Here," he drops a metaphor that comes across both faded and vivid but uniformly beautiful: "Just like the rain I'll always be fallin'," he sings with a voice full of clear-eyed weariness, "Only to rise and fall again."