When south London’s Caroline released their self-titled debut in 2022, their quieter, slow-burning songs were often contrasted with the city’s brasher, buzzier post-punk acts. But just as the capital has embraced the lush instrumentals of “London Prog”, ‘Caroline 2’ sees the band shifting their own boundaries and dismantling their crescendo-core playbook in favour of bolder, pop-inspired compositions. Don’t write off Caroline as sell-outs, though. Their embrace of pop isn’t taking the easy way out. Instead, they integrate these new elements into their experimental ethos, landing upon the most mature iteration of their songwriting to date in the process.
That pop inspiration is most clearly signposted in the cheeky references sprinkled throughout the tracklist – a nod to Coldplay on ‘Coldplay Cover’, a hat tip to Blur on ‘Song Two’. On ‘Tell Me I Never Knew That’ – the group’s clearest bid at an earworm on this record – they veer away from their analogue roots to embrace autotune and share the mic with experimental pop auteur Caroline Polachek. The results are a shimmering ballad that’s also one of the year’s most charming collaborations.
Even when digital production flourishes replace analogue decay, Caroline’s signature sentimental core remains. The eight-piece often favour simple melodic throughlines, not to pander, but because this happens to be the most emotionally resonant choice. Multifacted instrumentals like ‘Coldplay Cover’ and ‘U R Ur Only Aching’ ebb and swell, yet the main refrain of each track cuts through so cleanly a child could hum it.
In spite of this sonic experimentation, the most charming elements of ‘Caroline’ – the droning violin, the clean guitar tones, the open-mouthed vocal harmonies – still remain. ‘Caroline 2’ most closely resembles its predecessor on the vulnerable ‘Two Riders Down’, where fractured violin and wailing vocals reproduce the raw frisson of grief. The climax is awe-inspiring, threatening to collapse under its own unbearable emotional weight.
This album will inevitably be controversial with fans of the pastoral airiness of ‘Caroline’’s slowcore influences – the lush, immersive quality of the first release isn’t quite reproduced on this second outing. Sometimes, the autotune on the likes of ‘U R Ur Only Aching’ threatens to distract rather than augment, but the band’s choices are well-planned enough to feel like a natural progression of their sound.
Distilling a series of complex musical ideas into a poignant core, Caroline prove the value of earnest sonic experimentation, no matter what direction it may lead in. ‘Caroline 2’ marks a fully fleshed-out blueprint for a Caroline 2.0: a well-refined octet pushing musical boundaries in their most dazzling release to date.
