“It’s Still Now” is the second album by Carolina Lee and, over the course of eight songs, this Berlin based band makes a convincing case for turning introspection into the new black.
These songs are indeed low key and, with the laconically delivered vocals of Nadja Carolina much to the fore, they nonetheless exude a curious charm as if they were more like a casually paced stroll through someone else’s thoughts than an attempt to emulate, say, Burt Bacharach. To categorise this band as dream pop would therefore be somewhat disingenuous as there is more substance than style on show and I would tend to look on this album more as music for contemplation. Matters of the heart do feature, as you might expect, in the lyrics yet those very words are less about the glory of love than a right angled, and rather poetic, view from under a lamppost at the end of the street.
“It’s Still Now” is therefore an album for the sensitive rather than the desensitised which is, in itself, an unusual thing in these troubled times. With that in mind, if you are looking for an album to lose yourself in of an evening then this might well be the one.
Best song: The melancholy filled “If I Try”
Verdict: Low key but substantial.
The album is available on vinyl and CD from Bandcamp and the usual digital places.