ALBUM REVIEW: Chloé Caroline: The Awakening Vol 1

April 14, 2023
International Album Reviews, International Editorials, International Music News
by Jesse Wilson Writer/Photographer

ALBUM REVIEW: Chloé Caroline: The Awakening Vol 1

Once again, I was asked to review an album that I just wasn’t sure I was going to be all that interested in, against my natural philosophy to just go with the flow,
and once again, my fears and ego were slapped with the synchronicity of kismet to find myself on the other side of that void I feared, pleasantly joyful,
and laughing at myself and the insanely wonderful way things tend to go if we just embrace the road less traveled…

Chloé Caroline’s third album in this light, flowy sub genre of pop, offers us a very interesting and notable look into her life that may as well be many of our own lives, especially for those who are spiritually adept and have perspective from the universe of letting go, letting things be, tarot, Kabbalah, and truth within the purposely ridiculized science of astrology.
Accompanied by dreamy yet bass thumping background music,
Chloé impresses upon us her vocally crisp and lightly raspy, sweet, magnetic voice with the added gravy of being lyrically sound.

Generally, if it were to merely be listened to for the sound it emanates, this brief 22 minute, 37 second album would be ideal for the morning set of a Sunday afternoon pool party as the mixer greets guests and drinks begin to flow,
but this set of songs offers so very much more to the casual listener if, just like our own lives,
we choose to dive deeper and give it a sincere and honest look…

Chloé sells her beingness and her emotionally inspiring and inspired path to us through 6 songs designed to be an example of how we can see the world or live our lives if we’d only embrace and accept what crosses our path, having future understanding of what that us means to us now.

Immediately into the album and our first lesson involves learning how to be happy with and without that soul mate that may never come or might have already come and gone as “TWINFLAMES” confidently proclaims, “I could do life without you, but I don’t want to, like I did before I met you”.
Counter to most recipes for love songs,
“TWINFLAMES” doesn’t cry about love lost or not finding the one that never seems to come, rather her contentment with letting things be as they are is refreshing and resounding in a world where we traditionally complain about love.

If you are relatively new to the idea of “Twinflames”, then you must at the very least understand that this is the spiritual idea that there is a soul mate out there with a matching fire burning within their soul, complementing ours, defining them as our soul mate without necessarily saying that that we are guaranteed to cross their path,
though if life were to be lived with pure gratitude, come what may, then the universe will conspire in our favor,
much like the Alchemist of Paulo Coelho’s creation.

“Saving Space”, our second song, does very much of the same that the 1st did, in that she is not exactly indifferent about a love not working out in her favor, but content with the universe and will save space if said love comes back around at a more fatefully appropriate time…

“The world’s still turning without you.
The stars still align with someone new”
“It’s not too late cuz here’s the truth,
I won’t wait, but I’ll leave room,
I’m still saving space for you”

Touching on astrological archetypes, “GEMINI” playfully illustrates our experiences with the twin-personalitied Gemini lover as “one clean cut mess”,
“life of the party, silver tongue on ya,
and a wild side hidden in those wild eyes”
and “perfect in the bedroom when we’re alone, stars align in the bedroom but it only takes a second and you’re outta control”
We’ve all been there…
or that…

“Afraid of the Dark” sweetly and melodically moves us back into the idea of going with the flow of the universe, following the stars, and accepting the here and now of where you are in this life because “there’s no way of stoppin what was meant to exist.”
Personally, I really liked the sound in this song, to include her voice and flow of lyrics, and maybe cuz it speaks of meeting the love interest of the song in a bar on Hollywood Boulevard,
the historic street, I too, live off.

“Underneath the Moon” really digs into the catalyst for much of the suffering in this day and age where programs such as the radio and television, as much as social media, overdramatize and glorify sadness and drama, if not incentivize and reward it in an echo chamber spiral of misery and frustration, feeding off of and directing the lives of billions of impressionable souls to perpetually post their melancholic grievances in ritualistic fashion…

“Im so tired of the radio lies talking just like the sun won’t rise,
Arise!”

“It’s cooler to frown…there’s always something to cry about”

Yet, Chloé suggests seeing the clouds and darkness with a different perspective,
one that enlists gratitude for what little light might be coming through from the moon,
and to dance around it together as if it were the sun,
as it very realistically is but a mirror for the light of said sun.

“Maybe all this sadness , there’s a sense so tragic, cuz I dance with you underneath the moon.”

Rounding out the album, “Memories,”as one might reflect on one’s own life, Chloé drops background recordings from old home videos from when she was a child while telling a story of her mother finding an old shoebox full of journals she had written at 12, “It’s not often you get to return to a ghost,
a soul from a me from a lifetime ago…”
“wonder what she’d think of me now.”

This trip down memory lane, like we often do, begs the question of what our past self would say or think of who we have become and if they’d approve. This process of reflection is an ideal prescription for any of us to swallow under a method of 2 steps forward, one back,
so as to learn from those 2 steps, see em with different eyes, and glean from the path of the past positives and negatives that will assist us in our next 2 steps forward in a more effective and efficient manner.

Appreciating who we were in past lives is key to living the who we are now for we are but an amalgamation of every moment we’ve lived and retain within, “needed remindin, I’ve come a long way… she’s still in my veins.”
And after peering through this looking glass, we are to return to the present completely and confidently with a better understanding and compassion for us now, wholly embracing that we are home…
“Got in the car and finally came home.”

I am always very reluctant of the sincerity when spiritual connotations and concepts are used in titles of movies, shows, songs, albums, and lectures as more often than not, they are used as a marketing device rather than a sincere understanding and sense of duty to share esoteric insight with they who are willing to listen or watch,
and while that justified pessimism when first reading the title of Chloé Caroline’s album gave me pause,
her lyrical prowess and musical acumen served as lubricant to the pill I had to swallow of crow flavor, when I joyfully was awakened to her genuine gravity in this vein of spirituality
and I am now very appreciative for this scar and souvenir on my own path…

Overall, solid 8/10