• News

• All

Apr 15, 2025 By Mark Redfern Photography by Henry Redcliffe

London-based eight-piece caroline have announced their sophomore album, the fittingly named caroline 2, and released a new single from it, “Tell me I never knew that,” which features guest vocals from another Caroline, Caroline Polachek. Watch the video for the song below, followed by the album details and the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Caroline 2 is the follow-up to the band’s self-titled debut, released in 2022. In March the band released the album’s first single, “Total Euphoria,” which was #1 on our Songs of the Week.

The band’s own Jasper Llewellyn, Casper Hughes, and Mike O’Malley produced caroline 2, which was engineered by Syd Kemp, mixed by Jason Agel, and mastered by Heba Kadry.

“The first record was a compilation, but this one is a declaration,” says Llewellyn in a press release. Llewellyn adds that this album also feels more like a full-band affair. “We were just about an eight-person band on the last one, but now we’re a proper eight-person band.”

Llewellyn, Hughes, and O’Malley founded caroline in 2017 and over time the lineup grew to include trumpeter and bassist Freddy Wordsworth, violinists Magdalena McLean and Oliver Hamilton, percussionist Hugh Aynsley, and flute, clarinet, and saxophone player Alex McKenzie.

Of the new single and collaborating with Caroline Polachek, the band collectively had this to say: “We used to call this one ‘Backstreet boys’ because the opening top line felt like a Backstreet Boys song. The main riff was written by Casper on acoustic guitar and stuck out as a really catchy, bouncy, hypnotic thing. We wrote the opening top line together and straight away we thought ‘this sounds like a melody that Caroline Polachek might sing’ in its hooky-ness. We sort of joked that we’d ask her to sing it but didn’t think it’d actually be on the cards, until about a year later when we sent her the half-finished song and she was up for it!

“Caroline was amazing. She wrote a load of extra parts that gave the whole thing such a lift, and then spent a few hours tracking a load of more improvised parts. We were still recording at about 1.30am when we decided to call it, but there was no indication that Caroline was the slightest bit tired or that she had lost any momentum in her ability to sing, even though she’d been singing for about 6 hours. It was an inspiring thing to witness! We did a little bit more re-ordering together with Caroline a few weeks after the session and then the song was finally there.”

Of the song’s video, the band add: “This video collates footage from the last few years from the phones of lots of people that we love. Putting it together was a rush of euphoric nostalgia. We hope you enjoy.”

caroline 2 Tracklist:

1.Total euphoria
2.Song two
3.Tell me I never knew that
4.When I get home
5.U R UR ONLY ACHING
6.Coldplay cover
7.Two riders down
8.Beautiful ending

caroline UK Tour Dates:

Thu, 30 May - London, Rough Trade East
Sat, 31 May– Bristol, Trinity
Sun, 1 June – Falmouth, KCM Church
Tue, 3 June – London, Islington Assembly Hall
Wed, 4 June – Cardiff, The Gate
Fri, 6 June – Manchester, Band On The Wall
Sat, 7 June – Glasgow, St Lukes
Sun, 8 June – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
Wed, 3 Sept - Tokyo, Japan, WWWX
Tue, 9 Sept – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Tolhuistuin
Thu, 11 Sept – Aarhus, Denmark – Alter Festival
Fri, 12 Sept – Copenhagen, Denmark– Loppen
Sun, 14 Sept – Brussels, Belgium – Ancienne Belgique
Mon, 15 Sept – Paris, France - Petit Bain
Tue, 16 Sept – Lille, France – L’Aéronef

Subscribe to Under the Radar’s print magazine.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.