Caroline Rose's 'Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall' Is 32 Minutes of Beautifully Unleashed Chaos
Caroline Rose put this out themselves. Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall is catalogue number SUCK02 on SUCK Records, Rose’s own imprint, and the independence is audible in every one of its thirty-two minutes. musicOMH’s John Murphy went five-for-five and wrote that “Rose has always been at their best when they’ve completely slipped off the leash” — then went further, calling the record “the antithesis to AI generated music, this is a record full of energy, creativity and innovation and deserves to be heard by as many people as possible.”
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Zac Rae covers guitar, bass and keys, and the bass sits unusually dry and forward — no sub-bass bloom, no compression smoothing it over. On “Cement Head” and “Goddamn Train” that nakedness is the joke’s delivery mechanism; No Depression’s Maeri Ferguson heard Rose’s “deliciously sarcastic wit” working as “a coping mechanism through dystopian times” on exactly those two.
The Spatial Dynamics: John Congleton produced, engineered and mixed at Animal Rites Studio in Los Angeles, with Rachel White on additional engineering and Matt Colton mastering at Metropolis in London. Ferguson nailed the approach: “Perfectly minimal production by the singular John Congleton gives Rose enough space to be explosive and experimental.” Nothing is doubled for safety. When a guitar drops out, you hear the room it left.
Standout Performance
Carla Azar on drums and percussion. Rose and Congleton both run drum machines here too, and Azar’s playing is what makes the handoffs feel like decisions instead of edits. She sits slightly behind the grid on purpose, and the record lurches forward because of it.
Why It’s Certified
⚡ “Yip Yip Yow” opens at a sprint and “Chow Mein” never lets the tempo settle.
🌈 “Notes to Teenage Self” and “Valery (please don’t be mad at me)” are the tender ones, and they land harder for sitting next to a song called “RIDE (!!!)”.
⚡ Alt Revue scored it 9.5 and called it “another winner from Rose who had a history of making great choices.”
Eleven songs, no fat, nobody’s permission required. Certified great.