Released October 18, 2019
8 / 10
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Look At Me Now, Ocean of Tears, Caroline Shut Up, So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings, Door
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Hey Big Eyes
Caroline Polachek uses the full extent of her vocal ability to lead and support melodies across the length of her solo debut under her own name (and third solo studio album overall). She co-produced the bulk of it with Danny L Harle from PC Music (worked with Charli XCX, Tommy Cash, Rina Sawayama) - an impressive feat considering how immaculate production is throughout. Caroline takes pop to exciting places, impregnating arrangements with modern classical touches and using her classical voice lessons to integrate her vocals with unexpected twists. Vocal effects and computer processing stretches her delivery past what feels humanly possible, bridging pitch gaps in a split second and reaching sky-high notes with full power. As part of a thriving alternative branch of contemporary pop music,"Pang" does away with the idea that auto-tune is a gimmick to compensate for lack of skill, showcasing both Caroline's vocal dexterity and a will to live in the blur between the real and the fake. The record exhibits intensity above all, making fangs and claws out of instrumentals to sharpen emotions rather than use them to dull her edges or hide behind props. It leaves me curious to see how most of the tracks fare when performed live: "Pang" sounds like its content is best heard as a studio album; I have yet to experience live renditions but I doubt they'll outshine the massaged recorded material. In any case, "Pang" is the product of an audacious and bold artist, drawing from her experience of grief and relief, the tension between doubt and determination and alternating between phases of verbose contemplation and more lyrically sparse moments where the music speaks for itself. The album has a motif of loss of control, when emotions threaten to get the best of Caroline. It starts with a vision of love as full of literally breathtaking moments (the pangs), the brief instants during which you have no choice but to relinquish control - and losing yourself when those seconds turn into days. The Gate is an ethereal start full of optimism: "There's no need to wait / We will be okay / 'Cause finally there's a way / To be both free and safe". The track shimmers with little chimes and reverb. It's the first of many rich and full vocal deliveries that feel light and dense at the same time. Nevertheless, it could've been slightly shorter for more impact. It leads directly into the title track, coined by Caroline and collaborators. About its meaning, she said: "we use it to describe hunger, envy, desire, nostalgia and jealousy" (V Magazine, October 2019), referring to those gripping feelings often accompanied by surges of adrenaline. Caroline describes an intense relationship on both sides, full of little sparks and explosions. The way she lets the "pang"s out is remarkable in itself: attached to its projected meaning, the way the sound is produced takes the breath out of her for a brief instant to let out the 'p' sonority. The song resides somewhere on a spaceship with gyrating ringing sounds. The spatial imagery evoked by the ringing is reinforced on the bridge, with deformed vocals and a sense of floating. The subsequent chorus is augmented with even more rotating bips. By the end it can feel a bit repetitive and the ending sounds almost like it was spun out of a lack of ideas of how to appropriately close the track. Hit Me Where It Hurts announces the emotion it's born out of from the jump by opening with the chorus and the line "I'm feeling like a butterfly trapped inside a plane" in particular. She alludes to this image to represent an illusion of control, free movement within a clearly delimited space that is moving you along much further and faster than you're capable of, without true control of overall velocity and/or direction. The spoken word verses are a bit of an oddball on the album - something you'd come to expect more from Charli XCX than former Chairlift half Caroline Polachek. The built-in contrast with the choruses is a bit stark and the vocal liberties Caroline takes on the bridge are a bit disconcerting - the bridge does chain beautifully with the final chorus nonetheless. Caroline has a lot to say about the phase of the relationship where both parties grow out of love and into apathy. About this transitional phase, she had this to say on her Instagram: "Apathy is a symptom of clearing space for something new, even if we don't realize at the time. And it's not always pretty". I Give Up dwells in this space, with neither protagonist willing to keep trying to maintain the relationship afloat. As the link that unites them dissolves, Caroline deals with a mix of emotions not unlike what many of us have had to experience. And she does so with stellar penmanship ("It's a new and shallow grief / A pathetic king of sad relief", "It's a new and shallow grief / An apathetic kind of self-defeat" are personal favorites). Her voice soars throughout, dodging a tone of despair or anger, instead tinted with excitement at the idea of moving on. The instrumental loop that serves as the basis of the song is rough around the edges and leaves her to the task of creating and sustaining the main melodies with her sole vocals. At this point of the album it's evident that Caroline is not afraid of putting her voice at the forefront of the experience. The track moves along at quite the pace, the second verse's arrangements making it sound very different from the first with additional glowing sonics - it's certainly more adventurous and fuller than the first. To me, this is the first track of the album that reveals glimpses of just how much Caroline has to offer on "Pang". Look At Me Now catches the ball mid-air and works its magic even more audaciously than her predecessor. In terms of subject matter, it feels like the natural next step after I Give Up's premise. Whereas the previous track felt more like a reverie about ending the relationship than a call to action, Look At Me Now sprinkles a bit of resentment - "You can't look at me now / I haven't changed, I'm still the same" - and a determination to take the necessary steps to move forward. It manages to be lyrically transparent and poetic at the same time - similar to its precursor. This twinkling folkie ballad has quite the intriguing progression. From a near acoustic start, it grows fuller and fuller, feeding on Caroline's otherworldly vocals and bringing forth more and more elements to support her vision for a better future. The song beautifully climaxes during the final chorus with a sense of accomplishment and self-reassurance that her decision is the right one to make. Insomnia is a harder track to figure out thematically. Caroline describes it as being about "the inability to hold onto anything forever [...] but grasping for it in the dark nonetheless". It marks a turn for the record with a pretty somber tone that breaks with the hopeful quality even the more melancholic of the earlier tracks were imbued with. The ambient soundscape creates a daunting impression of space with a growling bassline that draws nearer almost imperceptibly. Atop this backdrop, Caroline's voice sounds like sonar calls in the depths, looser and more unhinged than ever before on the record. The ending of the track is perhaps slightly more chaotic than it really needed to be but I appreciate Caroline's willingness to go there nonetheless. The second half of the record deals more about the emotions associated with a long-distance relationship and the processing of those emotions. It also holds most of my favorite moments of "Pang". Ocean of Tears kicks this leg off, "dedicated to the sharp pain of being in love with someone far away, and the maddening doubt that comes with it". Despite having her vocals go through the cyborg machine, the rendition feels intimate and very human. She plays with hints of dissonance and instrumental choices that bring FKA Twigs to mind. As on previous tracks, Caroline uses her vocals as the ultimate vehicle of pain, letting cathartic howls out one after the other - still audibly controlled. Percussions keep the track alive, helped by a multitude of little sonic winks and ornaments: unlike many of her contemporaries, she doesn't seem concerned with stripping production to essentials - and shows she doesn't need to. In Caroline Shut Up, Caroline shuts down self-doubt and overthinking voices over a swooning doo-wop love ballad. The hook's candidness is especially endearing: "Sometimes I wonder / Do I love you too much? / Then I tell myself, 'Caroline, shut up'" - which she uses to the max of its ability by opening the track with it. Side note - it must be a strange one to have sung back at her during live performances. The way she insists on each syllable of the title every time she utters the words is a nice touch. At times it can feel like she's a bit constrained by the tempo she's chosen to work with though. Nonetheless she more than makes up for it with ingenuity. The bridge is an exceptional moment better lived than described. Finally, the last chorus sees her stray slightly off the origin melodic path, a pleasure to a keen ear. Another album highlight comes right after Caroline Shut Up, a cheeky take on missing the object of her affection. So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings is a lively, 80s pop-infused tune that's working with similar material we've heard from contemporaries the 1975. The verses are quite simple, fully supported by a great background vocal loop. The hook is centerfold, holding the song's pulse in its palms with layers of processed vocals to support her main vocals. Each part flows into the next, unafraid to expose brief moments of silence, essentially lifting the curtain on production. The bridge is kind of genius: I've hardly ever heard someone asking their lover for steamy pics as subtly as Caroline does in it. The "show me the banana" are very understated, purposefully overshadowed by the use of layers of vocals processed to sound like a guitar solo - I know, pretty cool right? The gift keeps on giving with Door. The opening lyrics ("Back in the city / I'm just another girl in a sweater") are so simple yet so evocative. What's more the first verse doesn't really let on anything coming afterwards - creating a little web of secrecy that builds anticipation. In between the two first verses, the electronic interruption hints as greater things coming, adding fuel to the fire. The pre-chorus then really acts as a ramp to the chorus; a captivating chorus that benefits from exceptional production. A favorite moment of mine is when the grated chords on the bridge (the "running" repetition) evolve very organically into vocals used like synth as the bridge transitions into the pre-chorus. What a grand and satisfying track! The album concludes with Parachute, a spiraling daydream that her classical voice training has certainly prepared her for. It's a tricky one to grasp, as elusive melodically as the images it summons. Whenever you think you know where it's headed, it shape-shifts into something else. At a point it brings us briefly back to New Normal's signature "What is this" - blissful. An angelic send-off for an album that doesn't let emotions get the best of its focus - instead harnessing their power as endless wells of inspiration.
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