Dan Bejar of Destroyer says: “It’s hard to talk about Rosali’s music. Songs that reach outward like this, but then constantly disarm with their intimacy. What do you call such inner searching that is hellbent on rollicking? Songs that long for a sense of peace and songs that want romance, all on equal footing in the same plot of earth? Performed wild, but always centered around the incredible lyrical calm that is Rosali’s voice.
“Sandy Denny jamming with Crazy Horse on a late night in the mid-1970s,” so I won’t attempt to try, but I will add that it’s pretty remarkable how well Rosali captures that vibe 50 years removed from this imagined scenario. The North Carolina/Philadelphia singer/songwriter (whose full name is Rosali Middleman) has been releasing albums of warm, earthy folk music for nearly a decade, and on this one—her Merge Records debut—her Crazy Horse-esque backing band is the David Nance Group, whose rugged jams couldn’t work more perfectly with her transportive voice.
“Bite Down” is packed wall to wall with tunes that are unsettled but unhurried, generous with melody, wandering but never lost, and reliably steady despite the never-ending twists and turns of an earthly existence. But above all, they are beautiful, broken and built around the kind of raw emotional uncertainty that will resonate with anyone who has ever lived, loved and/or lost. “Bite Down’s” highlights include “My Kind,” a kinetic, country-blues stomper that serves as evidence that Rosali is perfectly capable of a Waxahatchee-style arc if she chooses to pursue it, and “Hills on Fire,” a triumph of room-sound atmospherics and squirrelly guitar-isms that feels like watching a lightning storm crawl across a vast flatland, or perhaps childhood trauma streaking through an adult body. And while “Bite Down” has more approachable peaks, it ends with two tracks that echo both its stylistic range and its recurring themes of pain, self-reflection, healing and hope.
“Bite Down” makes me think about singers and bands that throw themselves hard into the storm, the way the Rosali quartet does. … The calm of her voice over top of the band’s raging it is the emblem of songs that live to put themselves in harm’s way. But it’s not harm. It’s just that you have to play hard to get at these goods. The calm of Rosali’s voice, the straight talk of her inner search vs. the wildness of the band, the sonic storm she rides in on. That’s their sound.”
released March 22nd, 2024
All songs written by Rosali Middleman
The Fat Angel Sings 