ESTHER ROSE - HOW MANY TiMES

ROUTES & BRANCHES

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

March 26, 2021

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

There are a lot of lazy covers out there, especially during COViD times. That said, I love them as a backstage pass to an artist's influence and inspiration. Early in our extended pandemic year, Esther Rose shared a quality four-cut EP featuring tracks originally by Sheryl Crow, Nick Lowe, Hank Williams and Linda Ronstadt/Roy Orbison. Earlier, on her original "Five Minute Drive", she presents herself as a teen, her mood swings soundtracked to Against Me!, Julie Ruin, Minor Threat. 

That song comes on Rose's last full-length record, 2019's You Made It This Far. Set in New Orleans, that project paired her with a band largely composed of members of the Deslondes, creating country-leaning folk music (or folk-leaning country) with enough quirk and charm to bring her to the attention of non-country listeners. 

Today, Esther Rose returns with her fourth collection, How Many Times (Father/Daughter). Recorded live in studio with much the same outfit, her new originals are more fully committed to country, even as her delivery and perspective assure she'll never be mistaken for Miranda Lambert. Of course, country music is no stranger to heartbreak and estrangement, and the fiddle (Lyle Werner) and pedal steel (Matt Bell) that lavish these grooves are terrifically trad. 

Werner's fiddle is the first sound from the album's title cut, a song that sets the overcast tone for much of the ten-track collection: Walking through the Quarter with my hood pulled up / Don't you stand beside me boys I got bad luck. It's the kind of raw emotion in which Esther Rose trades. The fragility is emphasized by the directness of these live sessions, by the vulnerability of her vocal delivery. But like Jenny Lewis or Nicole Atkins, there's frequently an undercurrent of self-deprecating humor here, as Rose launches in a bit of a sha-la-la-woooh to close the song. 

She's tagged "Keeps Me Running" my most recklessly optimistic loner anthem to date, with its incendiary themes and relatively upbeat tempo. There's a tentative freedom implicit in the lyrics, as the narrator wanders the night streets: Strike a match and watch it burn / Now every single match will get a turn. Nevertheless, the prevailing spirit throughout most of How Many Times is one of loneliness - bottom scraping loneliness. It's Sitting home alone on New Years Eve from "Are You Out There", featuring one of Rose's most expressive vocals. That delivery is as much pop edge as country twang, a perfect vehicle to communicate the song's yearning: I really lost my shit, you know I fell for you.

Rose's small but capable band covers its country bases, but ranges further afield on tunes like the more roots rockin' "Good Time" or the early rock drama of "When You Go", with the strains of Matt Bell's lovely lap steel. The soul seeking "Mountaintop" brings Cameron Snyder's percussion to the fore, as well as a longing for a deeper connection: Tell me that it's true, you know I'm waiting here for you / I want to change my way of living, try to be forgiven. 

In a recent interview, Esther Rose remarked about the redemptive qualities of all this yearning: You can sing your guts out and be as creepy and as sad as you want, and then after three minutes you're done and you're okay. It's a lesson learned at the feet of earlier masters like Ronstadt and Nick Lowe and ... maybe Minor Threat? Like Laura Cantrell, Rose is well informed by what's come before. Unlike Cantrell, she isn't beholden to country tradition on How Many Times. Which isn't to say that she's not capable of laying down a beautifully pure country melody on the album closer, "Without You": Good dirt road, now I know / All the places you would go / But I'm traveling alone, without you. 

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This week's key additions to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster include Raise a Banner by Zach Schmidt. In stores on April 16 (Boss Dawg), the collection is produced by Sadler Vaden and finds the songwriter backed by other members of the 400 Unit. Low Cut Connie released our third favorite CD from 2020. Adam Weiner & co will be releasing a covers album on May 19, Tough Cookies: Best of the Quarantine Broadcasts. Guitarist and vocalist for the Wood Brothers, Oliver Wood will release his debut solo LP on May 21, Always Smilin' (Honey Jar). Versatile folk and roots vocalist Amy Helm announces What the Flood Left Behind. Set for a June 18 street date (Renew), the record is produced by multi-instrumentalist Josh Kaufman. Finally, expect a second volume of the John Prine tribute Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows via Elektra on October 8.