Daniel Cartier’s self-started indie label isn’t called Endurance Music for nothing. The 38-year-old singer-songwriter has been struggling to keep afloat a career that has seen it shares of stops and starts. Almost breaking through after he was plucked from the New York City subway platforms where he performed for tips and signed to Elton John’s vanity label, Rocket Records (which released the critically lauded Avenue A), Cartier was dropped in the wake of corporate reorganization and has spent the last decade-plus fighting an emotionally debilitating drug-and-alcohol problem. In between stints in rehab and even the psychiatric ward, Cartier released a few indie releases that, while good, didn’t add up to much success. Now clean, the revitalized musician has returned with his most personal disc to date. You and Me Are We gets off to a powerful start with the devastating “Right Arm,” on which Cartier confronts the looming specters of Fame and Fortune (“I’ve been biding my time, waiting in line/But it kind of feels like a lie”) in a volcanic fury of desperation that seems to erupt from his soul. From there, the album takes off in many different directions, tracking Cartier’s experience getting through rehab (the stunning “Fly”), his dead-end relationship with a narcissistic hipster (the ‘80s-esque “Pretty Boy”), and his ongoing desire to find a true soul mate (“Just Wanted to Fall”). A surprisingly good, club-ready cover of Gary Newman’s “Cars” gives Cartier a chance to show off his best gospel voice (think Alison Moyet by way of David Gray), while the joyously uplifting “Lay It On” (a revamped, country-tinged version of a track from 2004’s underrated Revival) is an ode to being in love that finds Cartier blissfully crooning like he’s the headliner at a hillbilly hoedown. Lighthearted tracks like the jaunty “Great” (a love letter to infatuation) and “The Doofus of Love” (a randy nod to wanting to get some action) prove that Cartier has finally put his demons to rest—and retained his sense of humor in the process—but it’s the disc’s closing track, the somber, pensive “Unfinished Business” that provides the melancholy but hopeful finish that this deeply satisfying and ultimately uplifting piece of work needed. It’s not to be missed.
~ Ken Knox
