Caroline Says
No Fool Like an Old Fool
Release Date: Mar 16, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Alternative Singer/Songwriter, Indie Folk
Record label: Western Vinyl Records
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Album Review: No Fool Like an Old Fool by Caroline Says
Very Good, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
Using the alias Caroline Says, Caroline Sallee made her recording debut in 2014 with 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong, an entirely self-recorded album assembled in her parents' basement in Alabama. An intimate, hazy collection of folk-poppy reflection, it came to the attention of Western Vinyl, which reissued it in 2017 while she was working on the follow-up. Arriving a year later, No Fool Like an Old Fool was also written, performed, and recorded by Sallee alone in a basement, though this time in her own basement apartment in Austin, Texas.
Based on rating 7/10
Sallee's songs grow out of the spaces between action; when a friend turns to leave and suddenly it's just you and your own thoughts, as the credits begin to roll and the house lights come on after a movie, a long moment stuck in traffic. The assumption with hushed solo songwriters is often that their lyrical themes are dominated by introspection, but Sallee makes a point to step outside of her own perspective from time to time and try to occupy a different mindset from her own. Here, "I Tried" -- set in a drowsy bossa nova mode that recalls Yo La Tengo 's periodic forays into similar territory -- is about the downshift from fame to obscurity, inspired by encounters Sallee had at an old grocery store job.
'No Fool Like an Old Fool'
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