The feeling of loneliness is nothing new to Caroline Loveglow and is transparently expressed through this dreamy pop album ‘Strawberry’. Even before the pandemic, the feeling of isolation was familiar to Caroline while working long shifts at a restaurant, living alone for the first time, and healing from a bad breakup. This album creates a private realm where any listener who is drained by the modern day world can retreat and recuperate. While also recognizing the unsustainability of disassociating from reality.
Strawberry is meditative music perfect for liminal spaces, like bus rides cruising through an empty downtown or late-night bedrooms lit by the screen of a computer monitor. The connections tied into her songs are transient and vague, but her music is far from. Filled with homophonic/monophonic drones and light guitar strings, tied together with her airy vocals and pop sound that offers solace to the listener.
Her opening song ”Patience Etc…” serves as a strong introduction to the album; singing of preachers, imperfect sin amongst lovers, and catastrophe, attached to a longing for closeness. The lead single “Happy Happy” amps up the vibe with an eruptive chorus of drums and electric guitar. While the title track, “Strawberry” reverts the album back to a wistful state. Opening with the sound of gasping, it is quickly soothed by a guitar playing in a melancholy tone. Loveglow does a good job expressing through her lyrics that settling for your current circumstances can fog your vision as she sings, “Playing pretend feels the same as the real thing, same as the real thing.” In her next track, “Zenosyne” she further explores the drowning effects of living in a fantasy, with an ethereal guitar underscoring the story of someone trapped inside their “dream hotel,” oblivious to Loveglow’s pleas to be what you want to be.
Next songs on the album are “Foxy” and “Blue Arcade,” which both feature protagonists alone in public places, avoiding the narrator (Caroline) in favor of fame and iniquity. Fitting enough, these tracks musically emphasize the distance between singer and subject. The synths that accompany “Sink” bring to mind the heartache of one harboring all the pain of adulthood. Loveglow sings, “How it feels to sink is such a lonely, lonely, thing.”, rooted from wishing for earlier, easier times and being hit by the dawning realization that going back is impossible. The final track, “On Earth,” continues the decline, finding Loveglow in full circle as she combines blasphemy and prayer once again. “I wanna see God, and then I’ll believe him,” she sings almost bitterly, as if she is done waiting for a miracle. As the song comes to a close she laments, “I’m drowning in feeling”. Although this may seem like a “all hope is lost” kind of note, Loveglow still manages to provide comfort with her soft voice.
Caroline knows the internal landscape of the mind isn’t the healthiest place to spend your life, but the familiarity that lies in the pain can be soothing to some. In a world that demands so much, sometimes a choice to retreat is the best choice, just don’t get lost on the way back.
