Using the alias
Caroline Says, Caroline Sallee made her recording debut in 2014 with
50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong, an entirely self-recorded album assembled in her parents' basement in Alabama. An intimate, hazy collection of folk-poppy reflection, it came to the attention of Western Vinyl, which reissued it in 2017 while she was working on the follow-up. Arriving a year later,
No Fool Like an Old Fool was also written, performed, and recorded by Sallee alone in a basement, though this time in her own basement apartment in Austin, Texas. By her account, it was a typically challenging urban home-recording process, with takes squeezed in between shifts at multiple day jobs, and quieter elements like vocal tracks captured in rare moments of silence late in the night. A more expansive, even dreamier set,
No Fool Like an Old Fool curbs some of the brightest moments of her debut, inhabiting a warm breeze, daydreams, and lingering regret. There's still some jangle to be found on tracks like "Mea Culpa" and "Cool Jerk," though it's muted by wistful harmonies, humming background vocals, echo, and a resigned weariness. The opener "First Song" establishes the overall tone with quiet acoustic guitar picking, spacy effects, and a vocal delivered at a consistently low murmur. Lyrics are sometimes indecipherable, but phrases like "details slip my mind," "I was tired," and "it feels like a dream now" are representative. With its pitch bending and limited chord movement, a track like "Rip Off" isn't out of place despite its brisk tempo and prominent drums, while the lush final track actually seems to dissolve, first into a circular instrumental, then into a human-mechanical drone. It's hard to say if Sallee gets a lot out of a little or intentionally little out of a lot here, but the album is at once rich, restrained, and beguiling. ~ Marcy Donelson