British Post-Rockers Caroline Coming to Great American Music Hall
Photo Credit: Henry Redcliff
Listening to the music of the eight-piece British art collective Caroline is like hearing a love-crossed conversation between two distant travelers. The vocals come at you from all directions, sounding cavernous, pleading and desperate to be heard.
The effect creates a distinct presence of space and geography—this yearning feeling that if one of the participants was only just a little bit closer, a little less removed, then that sense of unrequitedness would evaporate. Yet those distances remain, adding to the beautifully forlorn and fated undertone to the songs.
That persistent mood of satisfaction being just beyond the fingertips is not some accident, as the songwriters behind Caroline—whose 2025 release, “Caroline 2” was one of the best albums of the year—intentionally sought to create a dialogue of sorts within their tracks. No where is that approach more evident than the haunting, “Two Riders Down,” a ghostly, stirring epic from the second half of “Caroline 2.”
“We wanted that song to be this really strong contrast between the first half and the second,” said Jasper Llewellyn, the band’s chief songwriter and vocalist. “We actually first recorded that song in a church, and we assigned the drums to one speaker and the vocals to another speaker and the guitar to another speaker. The idea was to spatialize the recording—to make everything sound distant and removed.”
The band actually ditched the original demo of that effort, but the original intent remained in their final product, which was recorded back in a studio awash with reverb. Like so many of the other songs on “Caroline 2,” “Two Riders Down” is a testament to the grand ambitions of the band’s creative process—one that recalls early aughts acts like Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire. The band’s inventive and eclectic song structures evoke Midwestern emo outfits such as American Football and Cap’n Jazz and their comfort with yawning negative space is reminiscent of post-rock groups like Slint and Talk Talk.
On May 18, Caroline will bring their big-tent ensemble to the Great American Music Hall for the group’s first ever performance in San Francisco.
“We are incredibly buzzed about playing in San Francisco,” said multi-instrumentalist Casper Hughes. “For some reason, my main cultural references to the city are from ‘The Princess Diaries.’ So yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to making new memories now.”
Fans who make it to the Great American Music Hall will be in for a cathartic, emotionally rewarding experience. “Caroline 2” plays out like a journey, a travelogue detailing the challenges of reaching genuine human connection and finding hope in a fractured society.
From the opening track, “Total Euphoria,” where the narrator asks “Did we ever talk about / How you left them?” to the album closer, the aptly titled “Beautiful Ending,” which is marked by more questions—"Did you recognize it? / I'm halfway off my island,” “Caroline 2” is filled with the kind of existential riddles that permeate modern life.
But this is not a cynical album. Despite the chasms that appear in the song structures, there are persistent feelings of optimism, a gritty determinism that invokes hope against all odds. That sentiment is captured so eloquently in the band’s most famous song, “Tell Me I Never Knew That,” where guest vocalist Caroline Polachek mournfully and defiantly sings, “I don't even know if I'm alive / But I don't wanna be somebody else.”
Polachek, who started off as a vocalist for one-time indie rock darlings Chairlift, is now a legitimate pop star, making her appearance on “Caroline 2” as a big-time coup for the band.
“We actually heard that she was a fan of the band, and so when we wrote that vocal line, we thought it would sound good in her voice,” said Llewellyn. “So, we just sent her an early demo of the songs to see if she was up for doing something and she said yes. We were really nervous to send her something, but she ended up making what was perhaps the weakest song on the album into one of the best. That’s how talented she is.”
While Polachek’s vocal performances are a highlight of the album, her contributions end up blending seamlessly into the rest of “Caroline 2”—they aren’t some strange outlier. That can be attributed in large part to the band’s distinctly democratic vibe, an egalitarian, measured outlook that is grounded in genuine affection for one another. While Caroline started out as a trio in 2017, the group’s ever-expanding roster has required the band to be intentional and understanding in how they work with one another.
“This band has always been based on the existing and interconnected web of relationships and friendships between us,” said Hughes. “And I think to maintain those kinds of relationships takes effort—especially under the conditions of touring together and making music together in one room. And I think that’s one of the things I’m most proud of when it comes to this band—is how purposeful we’ve been in maintaining those relationships.”
While never overt in “Caroline 2,” that commitment to one another can be seen as the ultimate moral compass for the album. It’s reflected in those long and distant, back-and-forth exchanges that occur throughout the record.
Yes, those talks are strained and arduous—difficult to hear over the canyons of time, space and distance. But they are happening, nonetheless. Despite everything, Caroline is keeping the conversation going.
Show Details:
Caroline with Joshua Chuquimia Crampton
Where: Great American Music Hall
When: 8 p.m., Monday, May 18
Tickets: $34, available here.