Ah yes, another heralded female small artist with her own indie flare. Many have said her work is more in the vein of the more "art-pop" styles of Bjork or Kate Bush. The reality of these sort of pieces is they can be extremely hit and miss. I have personally liked very little of what I have heard of Caroline before. Nevertheless, I review so you have an idea. Everything is just my opinion. I naturally was coming though because one track includes Grimes AND Dido.
The album starts with "Welcome to My Island", and the production of this track melodically is grating. The weird war cry is also grating. The song is just...take me through a cheese grater.
Are we trying to emulate Luka by Suzanne Vega now? "Pretty In Possible" is trying way too hard to be a very popped Suzanne Vega here. I'm not appreciating it.
Caroline Polachek has no identity. This is not complimentary. "Bunny is a Rider" could have been any slightly hip-hop influenced pop track by anybody.
Oh my god does this have ANY cohesion? Let's just get some LATINO BEATS in here! It doesn't even fit with her voice. "Sunset" found a new way to grate me. I think what grates me more is she actually has a good voice and the lyrics have potential but she apparently cannot pick a beat to save her life.
"Crude Drawing of an Angel" is the first song that does not have some unfitting beat and actually draws you in. Tori Amos can do all of this better though.
"I Believe" is just okay. I feel like it is missing something more powerful to take it farther.
"Fly to You" is completely saved by the fact Dido is there, and Grimes knows how to actually produce something.
"Blood and Butter" is not so bad, but the lyrics are just kind of ridiculous. Hard to get into it that way.
I think I like Caroline more scaled back, less production. Her voice sounds very pretty on "Hopedrunk Everasking".
If she can make tracks like "Butterfly Net" and the last track, I don't know why she wastes her time with Welcome to my Island.
Going to be dancing like it is 1989. No I mean "Smoke" sounds like Jack Antonoff produced it. Okay just checked, he actually did not. Could have totally been him with more reverb added.
"Billions" I did not like as a single and frankly it seems the weirdest way to close the album. It doesn't fit as a closer at all.
LYRICS: 6/10 - Her lyrics are strange and often do not make the most sense...
MUSIC: 5/10 - The ruiner of this album is actually the choice of beats she has. They are grating and mismatched with most of the songs. Others sound like poor imitations of more acoustic, indie style pop females I do like. Don't be a piss poor interpretation of someone else.
OVERALL: 5/10 - Only walk into this if you like strange off tempo things. Hear me out: Bjork is also strange but she has always made her strange quirks of music work. Caroline has not mastered getting offkey wind instruments to sound on par with the album course. She actually has more of a Tori Amos type of voice and should lean into how Tori excelled in pop music with a similar style. There's potential, but not in the first part of this release.
Comments
Post a Comment
Suggestions or comments