Rosali - Trouble Anyway

Pitchfork 72

Philadelphia singer-songwriter Rosali Middleman constructs verdant, contemplative rock songs whose soft exteriors conceal a steely core of cool observations about heartache and vulnerability.

The Guardian 60

(Scissor Tail/Spinster)

There’s a pleasing blossoming on this second solo album by Rosali Middleman, also leader of ragged psychedelic garage-country crew Long Hots, and shortly to tour the UK as support for Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis. The Philadelphia singer-songwriter’s debut, 2016’s Out of Love, was lovely in its low-key way, but Trouble Anyway unfurls surprising, beguiling depths, with hypnotic, slowly multiplying textures and shifting, shuffling rhythms.

Dead and Gone has a gentle dreaminess reminiscent of dreampoppers such as Kurt Vile or Beach House, while opener I Wanna Know builds a gathering storm of steadily chugging guitar, cloudy reverb and layered voice. There are sharp and dark corners to counter the wistful woolgathering too, from Lie to Me’s barbed, complex Fleetwood Mac-isms (“Lie to me/ Lie with me/ I won’t believe/ Or conceive”) to the austere, Mazzy Star-ish droning fiddles and fingerpicking of Who’s to Say. If I Was Your Heart, meanwhile, is pure sentimental dreaminess, with delicate high notes and trills of harp. The Trouble, with its richly twangy slide, spooky reverb and oblique enchantments, is particularly powerful, but throughout, Middleman’s voice is dark and engaging, her songs possessed of a deceptively subtle charm.