This exercise of posting about my favorite albums of 2024 has reminded me that writing album reviews isn't my strong suit. I can't pull off being a pretentious Pitchfork reviewer. My analysis mostly consists of comparing new music to old music that I'm familiar with. And this post for Bite Down by Rosali will be no exception. Imagine, if you will, Crazy Horse fronted by Chrissy Hynde rather than Neil Young. That is Rosali in a nutshell. She is ably backed by the band, David Nance and Mowed Sounds.
The finest example of this sound is my second favorite song of 2024, "Change Is in the Form". This track features a wall of Neil Young guitars and some fine pedal steel by Colin Duckworth. I like the line, "Tears when we die, tears when we're born". Rosali has a gift on every track, including this one, for setting up the chorus and nailing it. The best transition to the chorus on this record is probably on the guitar fuzz drenched song, "Hills on Fire". "Hills on fire and still we climb. Lift my skirts, cover your eyes". This one is followed by the up-tempo, breezy "My Kind". Most of the songs on Bite Down are confessional and reference relationships. One of the best is "Hopeless", which features the line "It's one life for a minute, I let you be in it". Then there's the blunt line from "Slow Pain", "Fuck me or fight me, it's all the same". The lyrics on this album are brutally honest and painfully self-aware. However, rather than wallowing in the past there's a sense of moving on and not beating yourself up. This isn't typically a lyrical style I gravitate towards, but Rosali manages to make the intensely personal, Universal.
This will probably be the final post in this series. I don't enjoy writing these album reviews, and now that I'm back to my crazy work schedule I don't have time for things I don't enjoy. I will get back to listening to albums from 1980, and try to come up with some better premises for future posts that are more about "having a take". I think the next announcement of Rock Hall nominees should be happening in a couple weeks, so I'll beat that dead horse again. It's been a while. In case you were wondering, my favorite song from 2024 was "Petroleum" by, Yard Act. Peace.
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