If It's Too Loud...

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 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 ...