There's something very familiar about The Sky Falls Down On Me, solo artist Electric Caroline's debut album. It's a collection of ten jangly indie pop songs that easily sound like they could have come from Britain in the mid-90s alongside bands like Supergrass, The Bluetones, and The Seahorses, rather than Minnesota in the mid-2020s. I couldn't help but wonder if the song titled Be Here Now was a reference to Oasis' difficult third album, given how in love this album seems to be with that time and place.
In many ways, it feels like the product of a more innocent time, and there's a real sense of innocence to the songs and the music. Part of that is in the delivery, and part of it is in the content of the songs themselves. There's something very sweet about it all, almost like the kind of thing a young Daniel Johnston would have put out if he'd had better resources. This is someone who both loves pop songs and knows how to write them. The one moment where the album flirts ever so slightly with a darker tone, What Goes Around, is still no stranger to a catchy pop melody, and is probably my favourite song here.
There are a couple niggling things with the album, though, and they're a little pervasive. The first and foremost is that even at just ten tracks, things do start to feel a little samey by the end. Nearly every song is, to varying degrees, an upbeat indie pop song with jangly guitars and a steady beat. I found myself craving something harder or softer than what we'd been getting.
A smaller issue, and it's something I did get used to, is that some of the melodies were perhaps a little beyond the singer's vocal range. This was most true on the opening title track. Broadly, I think the most successful tracks tended to be ones with more restrained vocal parts. Still, this is the nature of DIY music and it doesn't take too long for your ears to tune in to it.
Overall it's a solid album recorded by a talented songwriter, and one can't really ask for more than that. I would be interested to see how this artist progresses and I'd be keen to hear a second album from them, but if you're looking for something breezy and fun then I'd certainly recommend checking this one out.