Bite Down

Album review

Here we are, still incorrectly writing 2023 on our checks, and we already have one of the year's best albums. Ideal for fans of Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr., Fleetwood Mac, and boygenius, Rosali's Bite Down is truly wonderful rock-and-folk-based music that can unite all but the most baby-faced of current demographics.

Rosali Middleman is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist originally out of Philadelphia who recently relocated to North Carolina, also the home of her new label, Merge Records. She's already released a handful of solo records and has collaborated on more free-flowing, ecstatic projects like Monocot and with her old band Long Hots. Middleman contains multitudes, but is smart enough to know just how to create an album which subtly updates the best of Americana from the last 60 years of rock 'n' roll and folk music.

A fair number of guests play on Bite Down, but the secret weapon lies with her band. This is the second album Rosali has recorded with the David Nance-led Mowed Sound, who have also backed her up on tour in the last few years. Nance plays guitar and bass, James Schroeder is on guitar, and drummer Kevin Donahue is stunning throughout. Mowed Sound specialize in controlled chaos and subtle explosions of guitar-based joy. There's a simpatico complimentary vibe that will bring to mind early 1970s Laurel Canyon.

Rosali's playing and songwriting approaches the heartworn, deceptively simple, eminently tuneful realms that Neil Young crafted with Crazy Horse. They traffic in gentle, slowly simmering anthems that let fly into solid rippers at a moment's notice.You'll be starring in a movie inside your head the first time you hear the Bettie Serveert-ish "Rewind," the haunted jam sections in "Change is in the Form," the delicate and sweet "May it Be on Offer," or the cracked, desert-baked churn of "Hills on Fire."

All we want is more.  © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz