Over the course of my conversation with Caracara frontman William Lindsay about the band’s new sophomore album New Preoccupations, he keeps returning to this idea of restraint. It’s a surprise — and a risk — in a time where people seem to be prioritizing music that overindulges, the kind that is short but jam-packed enough to intrigue the listener in a TikTok clip or on a Spotify playlist. As attention spans dwindle, maximalist songs are on the rise.
But at the same time, there’s been a theme of heavy bands whose songs used to burst with bombast taking it down a notch and settling into more quiet landscapes. Title Fight and Hundredth both shed their signature piercing, chaotic instrumentation for a woozier, more contained sound; Lindsay name-drops Deafheaven, admiring their shift from full-on metal to becoming “post-punk [leaning].” “I think, over time, you really start to see the value of restraint,” he contemplates about the group that released the rich Infinite Granite last year, “and how much you can accomplish by simplifying arrangements and individual parts and really focusing on — I guess a corny truism — the quality over quantity of the performances you’re capturing, the tones you’re dialing in, and thinking of songs in terms of living, breathing things that don’t always need to have every element all the time.”
In thinking about Deafheaven, he recognizes the way their progression has impacted Caracara’s. “With our first record [2017’s Summer Megalith], we wanted to go super small and super huge on almost every track on the whole thing. We wanted to get our point across and scream it at you, at every step along the way,” he says. “I think with more time spent playing together, listening to music together, and thinking through all this weird stuff together, we realized that the bands that we really look up to often are really about peeling back the layers and getting to the core essence of what’s going on. Deafheaven is an incredible example. We were well aware that they can create a magnificent, ten- to twelve-minute piece that covers an enormous amount of ground, and it’s almost more impressive when they withhold that from us and show us that they can write a clean post-punk track, too. A powerful, heavier screaming vocalist that can also sing is interesting to us.”
Caracara, who are a Philly-based quartet continuing to gain a modest but devoted cult-following, do not want to be a band that ends up with a song recommended by an algorithm. This can be noticed within the first few minutes of New Preoccupations; the tender, twinkling opener “My Thousand Eyes,” which features a celestial string arrangement, immediately explodes into the following song, “Hyacinth,” a fast-paced, angsty anthem. With Carlos Pacheco-Perez on the keys, George Legatos on the bass, and Sean Gill on the drums alongside Lindsay on vocals and guitar, as well as Will Yip on production and even Circa Survive’s Anthony Green on the track “Colorglut,” the album is an immersive reckoning with the highs and lows of addiction, with revelations, panics, and memories coming and going along the way. It’s designed to be heard in full. Lindsay, however, doesn’t want to call it a concept album, a term he associates mostly with prog-rock and double albums. “The record that I think does it maybe more perfectly than any record I’ve ever heard is — and I’m not sure if it would be appropriate to call it a concept album — Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming by M83,” he says. “There’s clearly a narrative there, there’s a story being told, but it’s not being thrown in your face. It’s not a plot-driven journey through a land; it’s more filmic in a way. It feels like a score to whatever it is that you’re experiencing while you’re listening to it.”
That ability for the music to resonate with its listener is a priority for Lindsay. In this way, he values restraint both in the sound and in the lyrics, not wanting to go too deep into detail about the topics he’s grappling with. “Something that I’m talking about a lot on this record is my own relationship with alcohol over the years, and coming to terms with feeling as though I had a problem, right as we were finishing writing most of this music. That’s not an experience that everyone has gone through, but I feel like through a good amount of just introspection, therapy, and recovery-minded thinking I’ve learned a lot about the different struggles that different people are going through at any given time,” he says. “And I think that in a story about addiction, there’s a lot there for anyone.”
New Preoccupations can be for anyone who has ever missed someone: “I remember you in an August way / Chiaroscuro haze / Saw you watching summer evaporate / Simple like the words you say,” he intones longingly on “Ohio,” an emotive portrait of the past. It can be for anyone who is desperate to feel something: “Atop the plateau of a vaguely restless mind / Might need a greater length of time / Between the comedown and the high,” he sings on the jaunty “Strange Interactions In The Night.” Though it’s riddled with darkness and danger, there’s something celebratory about it — a sort of gratitude for the chaos, and a wistful closing of that chapter. “I think it is easy after the fact to kind to be like, ‘Oh, that whole phase of my life was terrible. And I want to drag you through the gutter with me on this story.’ But that just that would not be honest for me to tell,” he says. “Alcohol did always provoke a sort of adventurousness in me that can be hard to come by otherwise. Through that, I’ve experienced some of the most beautiful moments of my life.” Restraint, then is also embedded within the topics he is dealing with in his lyrics; Lindsay had to step away from a source of happiness that was excessive and tumultuous to embrace simpler ways of living. But there is magic in restraint, providing someone with a fuller sense of appreciation for both the present and the past.
There is something special about reminiscing about drunk nights with a newfound sober lens, the kind that shines with clarity and acceptance. New Preoccupations and this prevalent integration of restraint represent a change in Caracara; there is more of a lucidity and understanding in the lyrics, as well as a greater patience within the sound. Caracara have found their footing; it seems that they know this, ending the album with the confident, cathartic screaming of the words “I’m finally free to let go,” repeated over and over like an incantation. This liberation is evident, and it makes their songs all the more powerful.
New Preoccupations is out now via Memory Music. Get it here.