Caroline Made the Most Life-Affirming Album of the Year So Far

There’s a quote I’ve been thinking about a lot recently: “Who wants a solo career? There’s a thing happening.” The line is uttered by one of the many, many members of the great Canadian indie-rock collective Broken Social Scene in It’s All Gonna Break, a tenderhearted new documentary about the group’s unlikely rise in the 2000s. And the “thing” in question could be a lot of things.

It’s the euphoria of collaboration, of humans breathing the same air and pinging brain bursts back and forth in search of art, meaning, and emotion. The thing is faceless, nameless. It’s the opposite of the pop star who solely conquers the world under a harsh spotlight while huffing the fumes of their own genius. Zooming out, the thing is embracing collective action in any and all forms in order to combat psychotic capitalism and authoritarianism. Broken Social Scene have been barrelling ahead with all of those ideas for a quarter-century, most memorably on their 2002 breakthrough, You Forgot It in People. That record is one of my all-time favorites, filled with music that’s mended my psyche, cushioned deep disappointments, and made me believe there is such a thing as a greater good if we could all put our petty bullshit aside for two fucking seconds. It’s really hard to manifest that thing. But the London octet Caroline have done it with their second album: Caroline 2 is the spiritual successor to You Forgot It in People that we need right now.