at the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I don't think Sam Carter's done anything all that marvellous yet.

He's clearly a technically gifted guitarist and a good singer - I like the fact that he doesn't try to smooth out his voice for the singer-songwriter-buying demographic, and keeps it folksily sharp and cutting, for instance.

For me this says it all:

"Sam is a very accomplished guitarist playing at times in a style not unlike Nic Jones"

That's not enough for me, and the "own tricks" part don't wow me; at least, not nearly as much as the guitar playing of, say, Michael Rossiter or Jason Steel or Flake Brown.

I also find his lyrics a tad irritating: they sound very much like the songs and delivery of a young man trying to sound the way he thinks he should, rather than sounding like himself (whatever that might be).

His lyrics often sound like he's trying to be all worldly-wise and observant and sapient, trying to be a bit of a street philosopher, because that's what earnest men with acoustic guitars are supposed to do. Rather than just being himself.

I suppose Bert Jansch and Ralph McTell both wrote a bit like that too, with the occasional clunker of a lyric, in their time. But it was the 60s then, and it was in the air, and besides they were among the first wave of people to be doing that kind of thing.

I say all this because what Sam Carter does is very close to being exactly the sort of thing I normally like very much, spoiled only by too many instances of exactly the sorts of things I find quite annoying.