Cari Clara: is it a name, a place, or a state of being? The argument could be made its all three, but I’d like to leave that decision up to the good people who wrote, recorded, and produced the sounds heard on You Better Run. Only five songs build this record — this tangible collage of symphonic rock — but one shouldn’t feel shortchanged by the end. Packed in tight to the fibers of the album is everything you would require from a meditative, transcendent, mystical mix like this journey that Cari Clara has put together. There is definitely a familiar aspect to You Better Run, though not in a way that’s boring, repetitive, or worse, disconnected. It’s done in just such a way that reminds you of your favorite tracks from your old Pink Floyd and Radiohead records –- a tiny, pint-sized tribute.

Cari Clara’s new album is a moving piece of art, and not only through its hypnotic sound waves but through its poetic verse delivered through echoes that sound both like they’re coming from a faraway place and a whisper in a dream. The overall presence of You Better Run is thought-provoking and deep, not to mention chilling. Chilling in the sense that anything goes for Cari Clara. It’s as if no plane of existence is impossible.

(Deep Elm Records, 210 N. Church Street, Suite 2502, Charlotte, NC 28202-2385)