Rosali – Bite Down | Album Review
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Merge Records
There’s something unshakably elemental about Rosali Middleman’s music. Maybe it’s the pastoral greens she uses to color her album covers or the sweeping, naturalistic lyrics she uses to flesh out her music. Or at least when I’m listening to her rage and writhe around with her backing band, Mowed Sound, thoughts of weather are conjured. If 2021’s No Medium was a whirling storm, then Rosali’s new album, Bite Down, is the waves settling back into place, finding a rhythm that’s confident and precise.
Bite Down finds Rosali in a new place, both figuratively and literally. In the time since her last record, she’s relocated from Philly to Asheville, something we’ve all considered doing, or maybe that’s just me. Either way, the serenity of the Blue Ridge Mountains seems to be rubbing off on her, as her fourth LP is filled with early morning music that begs you to sit on the porch with your coffee and look out at the leaves while you consider life’s possibilities. It’s funny because the album cover is unnerving, featuring a wide-eyed Rosali grinning through a shroud of leaves, resulting in a spectral sensation that goes against the grain of the naturalistic feeling found in the music.
This meditative sentiment is captured perfectly on the album’s closer, “Make It An Offer,” as Rosali ponders, “And I’ll sit for hours gazing at the light. And I do wonder and waste my life. No, I don’t wonder if I waste my life.” The real waste is to allow these thoughts of doubt to cloud your mind. “There is hope upon me. There is reason to try,” reminds Rosali. This instinct to persevere is also present on the album’s emotional centerpiece, “Hills On Fire,” which finds Rosali pursuing love in a world that’s burning as she sings, “Hills on fire and still we climb.” Both of these songs feature mid-tempo arrangements, spotlighting her lyrics and matching the contemplative state that she finds herself in.
While the album has a wealth of soft and tender-hearted lyrics, this is far from a sleepy affair; throughout the album's 45-minute runtime, the group finds plenty of time to let loose with instrumentals that simmer and explode. Rosali and her band put together one hell of a bar rocker with “My Kind,” where she expresses her frustration of having fumbled the bag, pleading, “How am I gonna live without you?” The tightly wound “Slow Pain” shoots off sparks of guitars before igniting into a full blaze of captivating soloing. On penultimate track, “Change Is In the Form,” Rosali’s selflessness as a collaborator is on full display as she steps aside to let guitarists James Schroeder and David Nance take center stage with their dueling pyrotechnics.
None of this would be possible without the deepened collaboration between Rosali and her backing band, Mowed Sound. On No Medium, they were crafting turbulent country rockers in the vein of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, but on Bite Down, they play like a school of fish, moving together as one, yet still each member to glint in the light. Rosali might have found herself in new surroundings for this record, but the amazing thing is, you can't tell. Even more settled in and communal than her last release, Rosali seems to have found a place that feels like home.
Connor is an English professor in the Bay Area, where he lives with his partner and their cat and dog, Toni and Hachi. When he isn’t listening to music or writing about killer riffs, Connor is reading fiction and obsessing over sports.
