The third full-length to come from formerly Wisconsin- (and now Brooklyn-) based Carl Johns and his rotating cast of musicians, We Can Build an Island continues to glide along on the comfortable, jangly Americana of earlier Charlemagne albums like Detour Allure. There are some sharp, stomping, Kinks-like tracks, like the opener, "Crushes," and the track that immediately follows, "Quivers on an Overpass," before settling into quaint grassroots rock with "You Are My Diary" (for a pre-listen sampling, just imagine the title in relaxed, sunny singsong). And on it goes in this polite but undeniably appealing fashion, with nods to The Byrds, The Jayhawks, Velvet Underground and The Vaselines along the way. Johns' vocal delivery has a Midwestern guilelessness to it; so while his lyrics aren't exactly spectacular when put to paper, he can turn the small-talk banalities of a song like "8x10" ("Scattered looks / dropped your books / Anything that I can do to help? / Like that dress / How's your sis? / I'm on break / Don't care if I am late") into something almost transcendentally beautiful. We Can Build an Island isn't cutting edge - or even wholly contemporary, really - but its warm, evocative ballads and head-wagging power pop hover on the periphery of fads and musical fashion, existing somehow in its own time and space. – Eric J. Iannelli (2008, The Daily Copper)