At one point this could’ve been a glorious meringue that would let loose a swirl of violins and twinkling guitars at the slightest crack. Instead, the pieces are fractured across the plate, the band's core ingredients smothered in a wash of new sounds, clashing drums, bursting brass and manipulated vocals. The result is an album far messier than their meticulously melancholic debut, and more beautiful for it.
Lead single “Total Euphoria” was a clear sign of something shifting. The track blended the droning, noisy repetition of post-rock pioneer Glenn Branca with the twee indie of Broken Social Scene. Though blended doesn’t quite capture the concoction, the way that repeated loops budge up against choral vocals till reaching a sudden sonic blackout that lasts for a few moments before a sound like the clouds splitting blasts through. When the band joined their festival circuit, they found their soft folk-inclined post-rock would often find sounds from other stages weaving their way in. Rather than viewing these incursions as irritants, Caroline began to see them as part of their pieces.
Caroline 2 takes the lessons learned on the road and applies them to the studio, resulting in a piece of post-rock which is surprisingly not precious about its compositions. Most of the core elements that made the band's debut are here, but the sound collage-esque approach to production and songwriting has resulted in some uncanny effects. Through various shifts and disruptions, Caroline have exposed new dimensions to their songs, often by working against them.
This sounds like a fractured approach, but Caroline 2 is a far more focused and defined work than the band's debut. Forgoing that album's mix of short and long pieces and improvisational tone, the follow-up refines the band's strengths. These songs are more than just beautiful, they're pristinely crafted, glittering diamonds that take on more complexity the longer they're stared at. The melancholic “When I Get Home” could fit onto their debut with its heartbreaking slowcore sound, but subtle echoes such as its muffled production and the childlike vocals of violinist Magdalena Mclean. It creates an effect of peering in, as if listening from underneath the band's floorboards.
“Coldplay Cover” leans into this aesthetic even further.
The track was recorded across two rooms with sound engineer Sid Kemp
bringing the mic back and forth between rooms. The mixture of field
sound and creaking footsteps with the alternating sounds of joyous
balladry in one room and brass-backed melancholia in the other gradually
coalescing into a piece that’s transfixing in its beauty and intimacy.
The use of incidental sound, sudden switches, and at points auto
auto-tune come together to create a new style of songwriting for the
band. One where the songs seem to constantly juxtapose them2selves like
mirrors aligning at slightly different angles to reflect new sides and
sights of a room.
Across the album the band approaches post-rock not as a
genre but as an idea. A method of fracturing genre cliches to open the
heart hidden within them. In doing so, they move past the increasingly
codified tropes of their style in favour of bursts of brass, twee
vocals, and crunching guitars. The excellent “U R UR ONLY ACHING”
brilliantly flits through aching math rock riffs, minimalist folk pop,
and aching auto-tuned emo. The equally phenomenal “Two Riders” doesn't
crescendo but instead a clash, with a chorus of vocals crying through a
weeping violin drone. Even at their most conventional on the Caroline
Polachek featuring “Tell Me I Never Knew That”, they avoid standard
form. Polachek's vocals duck and weave through the mix, layering over
each other to join the band's instrumentation in a tidal wave of folksy
ecstasy.
It comes together to create a truly remarkable record. One
that feels closer aligned to the works of Talk Talk and Disco Inferno
than any more recent post-rock developments. Like their forefathers,
Caroline tears apart the cliches of rock, bringing in the endlessly
shifting vocals of hyper pop and collage style production of
experimental rap to fracture and reassemble the traditions of not merely
rock as a genre but post-rock itself. It's tempting to be pretentious
and give them a ludicrous label like post-post-rock, but that would
undermine the intimacy and sincerity of the album. With its improvised
vocals, incidental sounds, and emotive power, Caroline 2 is an
experimental record that never lacks purpose or passion. It comes across
as a record not made with a grand statement or goal, but rather a
meticulous creation from a collective with nothing to hide or show off.
Just raw talent and a willingness not to be too precious with their
creations.
