Philly indie-rockers Caracara are gearing up to release their sophomore LP titled "New Preoccupations" on March 25th, 2022 via Will Yip's record label Memory Music. The new LP was produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip, and tells the story of vocalist William Lindsay’s struggle with alcohol and dopamine dependency, and is a master class in the band’s unique and hazy indie-prog/pop sound.

About the LP, singer William Lindsay says “I think what people will be able to hear in this record, and what we hope to say, is that this isn’t a totally dark and dismal record. We didn’t want to make a druggy emo record about recovery. What we really wanted to show, and what anybody trying to quit substances knows, is this is what makes it so hard: that there are these incredible, rapturous highs that exist in concert with the use of the substance that can’t be uncoupled from it, but aren’t invalidated by it. Just because it ended with you needing to stop does not mean that you can’t celebrate those beautiful memories that you did make.”

The record, tracked in Philadelphia at producer Will Yip’s Studio 4 Recording, opens with “My Thousand Eyes,” a hazy, hungover pool of guitars, harmonized vocals, strings, and echoing keys that Lindsay says situates the record “in an uncomfortable world with infinite stimuli.” The sounds coalesce and whirr upwards, blasting into lead single “Hyacinth,” an emo-punk adrenaline rush of guitars, Carlos Pacheco-Perez’s keys, George Legatos’ bass, and Sean Gill’s crashing drums that bleeds into the tight strut of “Colorglut,” which features vocals from Circa Survive’s Anthony Green. “Nocturnalia” follows with a steely, blurry synth hum and relaxed drumwork, the quiet morning hours that follow, as Lindsay says, “a full chemical commitment.”

“Ohio” starts small before building to one of the record’s most intense, theatrical climaxes, while “Song for Montana Wildhack” sustains its gorgeous, gentle riff to the hilt. “Strange Interactions In the Night” races through yellowish, headlight-lit streets, an anxious, excited piece of orchestral emo-punk. Closer “Monoculture” brings all these threads to a head in a brutal, bruising meditation that builds to a cosmic post-hardcore outro over which Lindsay roars: “I’m finally free to let go!”

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New Preoccupations

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