Mainstream music has given birth to sequel albums for decades, from the likes of Led Zeppelin II and Van Halen II to The Marshall Mathers LP 2 and Stillmatic. The more jaded amongst us may consider it uninspired, or perhaps playing off the listener’s fond memories of the original. Then again, it could also be a sincere effort on the part of the artist to make a worthy successor to a prior glory. Is it a fool’s errand to try and recapture lightning in a bottle? Should artists be more focused on moving forward instead of repeating the past?
Similarly, the word ‘euphoria’ has been used and overused to the point of meaninglessness over the last several years. Just a few examples include a hit HBO show, an eviscerating diss track from Kendrick Lamar, and an awful deep cut from Muse‘s most recent album all bearing that name since 2019 – and each wrangled the same word with differences in purpose. Oxford defines euphoria as ‘a feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness‘, although depending on its context this can be read as genuine, facetious, or just plain surface-level. When something touches the very foundation of our spirit, euphoric is the only way to describe how we feel.
I mention all of this, why? The sophomore album from London octet Caroline begins with a song titled “Total euphoria”, and it does the Oxford dictionary justice by bringing the listener on an emotional odyssey, hand in hand, through the wonders of the modern world. ‘If you let them, I’ll let them’ calmly repeats like a mantra over woozily strummed guitars and stumbling drums that, despite following a pattern, don’t quite match up in tempo or timing. It’s a blend that might prove frustrating for some listeners who aren’t accustomed to the more avant-garde side of indie rock – as horns, strings, and female vocals begin layering in, the swirling cacophony of sounds collapses in on itself around the three-minute mark into a wall of distorted noise. The beat then reintroduces itself, a thick coat of bass underpinning the stomping finale. It’s a breathtaking introduction to the second chapter of Caroline‘s beguiling mix of post-rock, folk, and experimental pop.
From “Total euphoria” onwards, Caroline handily prove they’re not a one-trick pony on Caroline 2. Their self-titled debut album from 2022 had many of the same hallmarks this album possesses, but now the picture is clearer, the song structures more daring. The appearances of pitched down/chipmunked vocals are all the more effective for their sparing usage – instead of a crutch, they add flavor and variation to the slow-burning compositions. It seems cheeky and even meme-worthy that Caroline employ Caroline Polachek for a guest appearance on “Tell me I never knew that”, but the song is achingly beautiful – the gentle acoustic guitar, the band’s vocal harmonies, the building instrumentation come together so naturally that the song’s nearly five-minute runtime passes in a flash, leaving the listener eager to rewind and play it again just to drink in more of its subtleties. The lyrics have a simplicity that cuts right to the core: ‘I don’t even know if I’m alive/But I don’t wanna be somebody else.’ By the time the song reaches its poignant climactic refrain of ‘it always happens, it always has been/this always happens, it always will be’, the resolution is simultaneously heartwarming and heart-wrenching.
“U R UR ONLY ACHING” features astonishing dynamic shifts and the most effective use of autotune on the album: used as a counterpoint to the hushed crooning of ‘I’m in trouble/what am I like,’ the repressed feelings and desires of someone crying out to be heard from within. Looking at the tracklist, “Coldplay cover” sounds like a joke song but stands as the most straightforward cut on Caroline 2, at least for its first half – the boyish vocal harmonies repeat ‘now I know your mind/doesn’t move as fast/as you’d like’ before a pillowy ending built on banjo and bass clarinet. Contrarily, I found this song not akin to the radio soft rock of Coldplay, but rather a Frankensteinian hybrid of Slint (in their more peaceful moments), the subtle baroque pop bluster of Black Country, New Road, and another British folk act, the woefully underappreciated Comus with their use of unusual instruments and harmonious dissonance.
After such a rewarding ride, one may assume Caroline has no more hands to play for the last leg of the album, but boy, does this album save the absolute best for last – a mean feat considering the high bar they’ve set already. “Two riders down” opens with country-and-western violins and what sounds like a drunken cowboy ranting about something nebulous: ‘Do you hear what I’m asking/With lost line gone innocent/I’m here and I’m telling/I can’t be with myself.’ However, around two-and-a-half minutes in, the song shifts gears into something I can confidently say I have never heard before. The drums lock into what could be described as blastbeats, but without any kick drum at first. When drummer Hugh Aynsley does add the kick in, the rest of the song switches up with him – the strings begin squealing and intensifying, the vocals move into a pained shout, and everything contracts and releases multiple times. “Two riders down” is something of a masterpiece in its own right, a steamroller of intense longing and, yes, euphoria.
As if goading the listener to laugh one last time, Caroline 2 climaxes on “Beautiful ending”, which would be presumptuous on any other band’s album – but Caroline isn’t any other band. The vocals take a non-specific approach, moving effortlessly between naturally sung, pitched down, and autotuned, while distorted noise roils underneath, growing louder with each appearance. ‘What if I tire?‘ the lyrics ask; ‘Not everything needs to even out’ comes the answer. These are the last words on the album, and it’s as effective a thesis statement as it is a piece of advice. Caroline 2 is an album about being unsure, being afraid of one’s own feelings, and the desire to throw it away and be free to live the life we’ve always dreamed of. An album like this simply could not be pulled off by a lesser artist with an inorganic sound palette; the machinery of modern musicmaking would have swallowed the concept whole. Caroline have performed a small miracle: to create music that reaches into the deepest, darkest depths of the human experience, and shows us hope in the face of uncertainty. An unqualified triumph. Caroline 3 can’t arrive faster.
