Three years after their debut album, London-based post-rock band Caroline are back with news of their long-awaited sophomore album: Caroline 2 arrives May 30 via Rough Trade. Leading the eight-piece’s return is the lead single “Tell Me I Never Knew That,” which boasts a feature from Caroline Polachek, the American pop star, for a meeting of the Caroline minds. Give it a listen below.
If you’re wondering how they crossed paths with the Desire, I Want to Turn Into You musician, Caroline explained: “We wrote the opening top line together and straight away we thought ‘This sounds like a melody that Caroline Polachek might sing’ in its hooky-ness. We sort of joked that we’d ask her to sing it but didn’t think it’d actually be on the cards, until about a year later when we sent her the half-finished song and she was up for it!”
The band continued: “Caroline was amazing. She wrote a load of extra parts that gave the whole thing such a lift, and then spent a few hours tracking a load of more improvised parts. We were still recording at about 1:30 a.m. when we decided to call it, but there was no indication that Caroline was the slightest bit tired or that she had lost any momentum in her ability to sing, even though she’d been singing for about 6 hours. It was an inspiring thing to witness!”
The follow-up to 2022’s Caroline opens with the group’s recent comeback track, “Total Euphoria.” Caroline’s Jasper Llewellyn, Casper Hughes, and Mike O’Malley produced Caroline 2, which was engineered by Syd Kemp, mixed by Jason Agel, and mastered by Heba Kadry.
Revisit the interview “For Post-Rock Octet Caroline, Everything Is Up for Debate.”
All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Caroline 2:
01 Total Euphoria
02 Song Two
03 Tell Me I Never Knew That
04 When I Get Home
05 U R Ur Only Aching
06 Coldplay Cover
07 Two Riders Down
08 Beautiful Ending
Content shared from pitchfork.com.