Caroline Rose “Loner” 2018. New West Records. Limited edition clear red vinyl, signed copy. Caroline Rose’s third studio LP has been languishing in my to-do pile for over 5 years now – I can sort of explain. Joe saw her perform in either 2018 or ’19 (probably while she was on tour for the record) and for whatever reason I didn’t go. Then I’m pretty sure I hung onto the record to write about since she was (I think) scheduled to tour in 2020 and then…well, we didn’t see any shows for a very long time. Then when she came around more recently, we weren’t thrilled with her newer material so didn’t get tickets for the show. I don’t know what her previous releases were like but from the description, she used to be more in the Americana/singer-songwriter category (not really my jam). Loner, however, has a lot of fun indie-pop weirdness woven through the some more mellow songs which are likely more like her old material. My top track is “Bikini” which is a 60’s garage, organ-forward dance party with a lot of sarcasm – it’s awesome! The track preceding it, “Smile! AKA Schizodrift Jam 1 AKA Bikini Intro,” is jagged, super-weird and also dripping with sarcasm (and a topic I can totally relate to: it doesn’t happen much anymore but when I was in college working retail I can’t even count how many times some asshole dude would tell me to “smile” – as if it was my duty to make his day or something). I also like two other tracks, which are also in the weird column, “Money” – it’s quirky and a total ass-shaker – and clever, slinky “Soul No. 5.” The rest of the album is kinda meh but those four songs make the LP worth having.