There comes a point after committing to a decision where doubt settles back in and gnaws at your thoughts. After five years with his downtrodden indie-rock band Far Caspian, Leeds-based, Ireland-born musician Joel Johnston started to question his career: the burning spotlight of expectations, the perfectionism of writing and recording everything himself, the purpose of making music at all. In penning a follow-up to 2023’s The Last Remaining Light, Johnston almost gave up entirely.
Faced with the decision to abandon his music career or decode how to achieve peace of mind within it, Johnston stepped away from Far Caspian to focus on producing albums for other bands instead. There, behind the soundboard in his own studio, he remembered what the rush of creativity that defined his life felt like. With the specific euphoria that only rediscovery awards, Johnston dusted off his demos and pieced together what would become Autofiction, Far Caspian’s third album of nuzzled-up indie rock that sounds less like an evolution and more like a commitment to carry on.
Johnston’s unique touch as a producer is undeniable—so perhaps it’s almost too on the nose that he found the will to revive Autofiction behind the boards. Since starting Far Caspian as a way to publicize his production skills on SoundCloud, he’s molded a sound that’s delicate, cushioned, and downcast; his sing-spoken lyrics land like breathy confessions in dream-pop spiderwebs, and he wraps guitar strings like gauze around the muted thumps of drumbeats. Like dejected predecessors Grandaddy, Alex G, and Sparklehorse, Far Caspian makes music that’s impossible to imitate without deciphering the artist's distinctive production as well.
From its opening one-two punch of “Ditch” and “First Day,” Autofiction revels in Johnston’s lush approach to each instrument, hitting like a welcome, familiar rush. The knotty riff anchoring “Whim” bears sharper fangs than its measured performance lets on, and the driving rhythm section of “Here Is Now” matches the rush of a rom-com montage about living in the moment. Over nearly five minutes, “End” barrels ahead with a sci-fi synth pattern that rights the ship before crashing into a wall of blissed-out noise. Banjo creeps along the edges of “Window” so quietly that it seems hesitant if it should even enter the room. The stark, lonely timbre of its plucks evokes the instrument’s use in You Forgot It in People, an album with a similarly extensive roster of instruments and unspooling inner thoughts that are downplayed through production nestling close.
Yet despite Johnston’s return to form in the studio, the album feels slightly dulled compared to previous Far Caspian records. The Last Remaining Light thrived in lively rhythm change-ups and oxygenated hooks, and the slower pace of Autofiction feels cautious by comparison. It’s not that Far Caspian’s vision is incompatible with glacial tempos or reticent melodies; “The Sound of Changing Place” builds a gorgeous slow-burner out of lackadaisical cymbal taps and a lazy guitar riff. But the hooks are fewer and occasionally subpar; they blend together, like in “A Drawing of the Sun” and the title track, or recede into the background.
Johnston admits that after years of being told fans can’t make out what exactly he’s singing, he pushed his vocals forward on Autofiction. The adjustment emphasizes the autobiographical themes of his lyrics, like his nurturing partnership or shifting his mindset from worry over his OCD and Crohn’s diagnoses to gratitude for life’s blessings. “Talking while you sleep, it’s like you know/That you could comfort me,” he sings on “End” in one of the album’s strongest moments. But shifting the focus onto his words leaves Far Caspian’s innate musicality slightly overshadowed; it’s as if he drained some of the color from his instrumentation to inject it into his confessions. “Your mind changed from a fear to a song,” Johnston recounts on “Lough,” relieved to have reignited his band as an outlet for self-expression. Johnston steadied his pulse on Autofiction, and sounds grateful for it, but it cost the everyday thrills of his past work.
