Album Review: caroline, caroline

In a video project for caroline’s debut single ‘Dark Blue’, the eight members of the band, carrying an assortment of instruments, clamber into an empty swimming pool and commence playing in an odd and somewhat archaic fashion. Yet, caroline’s sound in this clip is perhaps more expressive of our bizarre times than many of their peers.

Whilst the octet play a hypnotic riff in the bone-dry pool, the camera waits in empty industrial spaces, watching, capturing the sound, providing an affirmative answer to Mann & Twiss’ teasing question: when a tree falls in a lonely forest, and there is no animal nearby to hear it, does it make a sound?

The guitar on ‘IWR’ and ‘messen #7’ is like a one-man orchestra. Indeed, the production under the tutelage of John ‘Spud’ Murphy is leftfield and exquisite throughout. ‘Engine (eavesdropping)’ is a how-did-they-ever-think-of that concoction of Appalachian folk, Midwestern emo and factory-floor dissonance. It delivers the rare sensation where you take a deep breath and wonder if you should play it again.

Another question – Tom Waits’ one asking “What’s he building in there?” – comes to mind when listening to the unique ‘Skydiving Onto The Library Roof’. The sweet vocal and fragile melody of ‘Good Morning (Red)’ persists over shouted threats. It works perversely well, before collapsing to just snare, bass and angry fiddle, valiantly hauling the track towards a petulant, almost yawning conclusion.

The originality of caroline, somewhere between the math-rock of American Football and the minimalism of La Monte Young, suggests the tag of post-punk is inadequate – Meta-rock anyone?

8/10