If It's Too Loud...

Photo by Seannie Bryan It's been twelve years and four albums since Caroline Rose released their Americana masterpiece I Will Not Be Afraid. Since then, they've gone in more of an indie rock/bizarro pop direction. Their latest single, "Chow Mein," is still more in that style, but for the first time in over a decade I can also hear their country roots showing. The new single is a relatively laid back song that's fun and more than a little groovy. It's filled with fantastic vocal harmonies. "Chow Mein" also has a delightful polished DIY feeling to it. The best part of Rose's constant musical transformation is that all of their releases feel like natural extensions of each other, making her discography feel like a true collection of music. Caroline Rose says of their latest single: “I relate to characters who are a little strange, who are outsiders, who seem to fuck up a lot or find themselves in awkward situations. Most of these stories are just pu...

Photo by Seannie Bryan Caroline Rose wrote "Yip Yip Yow" and has regularly performed it live, but they had yet to release an official version until now. It's been a fan favorite at live shows, and it's easy to understand why. It's a high energy track that bridges her earlier alt-country sound with her current unique alt-pop focused one. It's a wonderfully weird blend of indie rock, cow punk, alt-pop, and garage rock, all together in a sound that is pure Caroline Rose. This is a return to the energetic and fun sound that has made us huge fans of Rose's, and finally having a studio version of "Yip Yip Yow" is a delight. Caroline Rose says of their latest single: “I wrote ‘Yip Yip Yow’ 10 years ago about feeling like I was born in the wrong time, in the wrong place and probably in the wrong body. 10 years later the only thing that's different is I finally have a recording of it I like. I think what's taken me so long to put it out is a fear ...

Photo by Ken Sears Last time Caroline Rose played Boston was April 10, 2023. On April 7, 2024, they made their turn to Royale on the final pass of their tour to support their excellent album The Art of Forgetting. Despite touring to promote the same album in the same room and almost the exact same date, Sunday night was a completely different experience. In 2023, Caroline Rose played The Art of Forgetting from start to finish for their main set and then came back for some other favorites for an encore. As great as the album is, it's a heavy album inspired by a difficult break up and voicemails Rose received as their grandmother slowly lost her mind. Rose still focused Sunday night's setlist on The Art of Forgetting , but played more favorites from previous albums LONER and Superstar. The first six songs were from their latest masterpiece, but they brought out "Getting to Me" for the seventh song, and the mood lightened substantially. A Caroline Rose show is a celebrat...

If 2023 is the year of artists reinventing themselves, my number one album has to be Caroline Rose's The Art of Forgetting. I've been a fan since their alt-country days of 2014's I Will Not Be Afraid , through the changes since.  The Art of Forgetting is a concept album of sorts. It's about Rose processing the pandemic (their previous album, Superstar , was released March 6, 2020), along with losing their grandmother to dementia and a particularly rough break up. That makes this album not a particularly fun one. It's not a downer, per se, but it's not exactly filled with road trip ready party jams. But, The Art of Forgetting is art. This is an art pop album that sees Rose pushing their boundaries, and then pushing some more. Even a song that starts off relatively simply like "Miami" slowly veers off into a more experimental direction, and might be the showcase of the album. When I saw Caroline Rose back in April, they commented that they felt they had ...

Photo by Ken Sears I've been going to Caroline Rose shows for a few years now, and they've always been a bit of a showperson. From back when they were playing the two hundred forty person Great Scott with a bunch of red items on stage (fake flowers, a stuffed cat with red on its mouth, red stuffed animals, etc) to playing The Sinclair with all of the same items, but everything awash in red light, I've come to expect a show. But nothing prepared me for what I saw Thursday night at Royale. Caroline Rose has been posting about the light show they designed in preparation for this tour. I'm not a big fan of complicated lights, and most shows I go to tend to be pretty low tech. But Rose's light show and stage set up complicated the music perfectly. This tour is a performance of The Art of Forgetting in its entirety, as it is meant to be heard as a piece of art. The stage set up featured Rose out front with two guitars and a keyboard. All other performers were behind scree...

Artist : Dom Flemons Album : Traveling Wildfire Quick Thoughts : It might just be me, but it feels like Dom Flemons is perpetually flying under the radar and it's not fair. Traveling Wildfire , in some ways, is his most accessible solo effort to date, but that carries an implication that his other music isn't accessible, which isn't true. It's just that you can hear a song like "Big Money Blues" and wonder why he's not headlining every roots festival known to man. A great listen. Songs of Note : "Slow Dance With You," "If You Truly Love Me," "Big Money Blues," "Song to Jcb" Artist : Annabel Lee Album : Drift Quick Thoughts : Annabel Lee surprised me a bit. I didn't anticipate this being a surprise favoreite, but every song on this record is compelling and interesting in its own way, and in a busy week, shouldn't be missed. Great if you like the singer-songwritery side of indie rock. Songs of Note ...

Photo by Cristina Fisher Of the three songs Caroline Rose has released from their upcoming album, "Tell Me What You Want" might be the closest to the sound we've come to love from them. The new song has a little of the dance friendly, joyous vibe from LONER and Superstar , but seeing that The Art of Forgetting has themes of grief and loss, "Tell Me What You Want" is still quite dark. The song starts out sounding like an unreleased cut from Superstar , and even has some more humorous lines chronicling a break up ("Boy, you're gonna hate this song" is a personal favorite). By the end, all sense of joy or fun are gone and "Tell Me What You Want" is a gut wrenching, painful song. This may sound like hyperbole, but you know how you felt the first time you heard OK Computer and it was such a tremendous step forward from Pablo Honey and The Bends ? This is the feeling I get from the songs off The Art of Forgetting. Caroline Rose says of their ne...

Photo by Cristina Fisher The Art of Forgetting is shaping up to be Caroline Rose's masterpiece. If last month's "Miami" didn't convince you of that, "The Doldrums" will. This new song is a synth heavy dreamlike meditation. The term hypnotic gets thrown a lot in regards to music, but "The Doldrums" encapsulates that term perfectly. Calling a song hypnotic usually implies a certain level of calm to describe the song, but Rose's latest is anything but calm. Quiet, yes, but there is an underlying sense of anxiety throughout this one. The song might be beautiful, but there is an unexpected anxiety in "The Doldrums." Caroline Rose says of their new song: “‘The Doldrums’ was the song I wrote when I was realizing I had basically no understanding of self-compassion. It’s about the voice inside my head that blames me for everything that’s ever gone wrong, mostly things out of my control. My idea of rebirth and reformation at the time was ki...

Photo by Cristina Fisher If you've been following Caroline Rose for any amount of time, you know that they're an amazing artist who changes up their sound quite frequently. Even knowing that, you're going to be amazed by their new single. "Miami" is a masterpiece of a song. Rose's upcoming album was inspired by a difficult break up and voicemails they received from their grandmother as she lost her mind. Because of this, Rose started thinking "... about all the ways memory shows up throughout our lives," which inspired her to use instruments that deteriorate over time such as wooden and string instruments, voices, and tape.  "Miami" starts off with just Rose's vocals and acoustic guitar, simply enough. The song just builds and builds as it goes on, with a wailing guitar that seems to loop around itself before going back to acoustic. The song propels along like this throughout its four and a half minute length, constantly morphing while ...

Photo by Monica Murray Back in October 2017 I walked towards Great Scott disappointed that had missed opener Caroline Rose. I really enjoyed her 2014 album I Will Not Be Afraid  with her groovy version of country in songs like "Blood on Your Bootheels." As I walked inside, I had my hopes up since the bizarro DEVO goes a little country sounding band that was playing was obviously not Caroline Rose. Turns out it was, and between 2018's LONER and 2020's Superstar I grew to love her new hyper and strange take on pop music. Caroline Rose is back with a new song, and she's changed up her sound even more. At her surprise set at the Here and There Festival, she mentioned that she had recently fallen back in love with acoustic music, and while that's evident with "Love / Lover / Friend," it won't be in the way that you expect. There's something very French pop in this song, as well as chamber pop or even orchestral. "Love / Lover / Friend" t...

When I first heard about the Courtney Barnett curated Here and There Festival, I knew I wanted to attend. Courtney Barnett putting together a travelling festival with a revolving group of artists playing? When I saw our local one was being held at Mass MoCA in North Adams, which is one of my favorite festival venues, and was going to be one of the larger all day ones, and also included Hana Vu, Faye Webster, The Beths, and Lucy Dacus, all of which are artists I'll go see any time they play in the area? How could I miss this? Despite having a logistical mishap on the way and missing Hana Vu, I was in great spirits. Besides the amazing musical line up, that was one of the great joys of Here and There: Everyone was happy. There was no aggression from everyone, everyone was nice and polite to each other, and everyone was just thrilled to be there. Even in the photo pit the vibe was just chill and friendly. I overheard two young women saying they drove twelve hours to be the...

Photo by Kayl Cooper One thing I've been worried about as more songs come out for Caroline Rose's upcoming album Superstar  is just how great they are while sounding more and more mainstream. Her latest single, "Do You Think We'll Last Forever?," might be the one that makes her go from being our thing to being known by our kids and office mates. "Do You Think We'll Last Forever?" is a rare mainstream sounding pop song that is just good. Like, really good. It would be quite ironic if Rose's concept album about a singer trying to make it is what breaks her out of clubs and into theaters. Caroline Rose explains the song: " “ When I started forming the narrative for Superstar, I knew I wanted the first half of the record to feel upbeat in order to mimic the narrator's excitement in following this big dream .  ‘Do You Think We’ll Last Forever?’ is one of these tracks that showcases the false bravado the character has, but also exposes a...