I listen to a lot more new music than I used to. A negative side effect of that has been that, while I listen to more things, I rarely go into the kind of depth I did when I started here. But, sometimes, there's just something that grabs me; and I can't just listen once or twice and move on. I have to spend time with it. Rosebug's Worst Way is the latest one of those for me.
Fronted by vocalist Becca Chodorkoff with Chris Nunez on guitar, Tarra Thiessen on bass, and Drew Adler on drums, Rosebug hail from the musically fertile wilds of Brooklyn. Their debut, produced by Miles B.A. Robinson, hits some kind of sweet spot for me somewhere between punk attitude and dream pop... ...well... ...dreaminess. There are obvious allusions to post-punk bands like The Cure and their modern descendants, but there's also a decidedly 21st-century feel to the songwriting.
Opener "Hello," appropriately, sets up much of the album. It opens with staccato drums and some serrated-edge guitar before Chodorkoff introduces herself with a quick, little "Hey!" The song alternates between angular and bass-heavy; and -- This is just a weird note, but -- as Chodorkoff sings, "You're high. I'm oh so low," I keep thinking about how Kurt Cobain morphed "hello" into "how low" on "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
Single "I Am The One" has everything that I love: chimey post-punk guitars, occasional trem-assisted strumming, a bass line that drives things steadily forward, and the vocals -- layered and draped in down-in-a-cave level reverb. Chodorkoff twists and weaves around the rest of the band: "I am the one whose mind is bending. I am the one who's never ending." One of my favorite songs this year.
We can hear someone say, "Don't fuck up!" just before Chodorkoff's rapid-fire, spoken-word performance on "Sundowner." The music roils beneath the initially calm recounting of what ended up as a one-night stand. By the end, Chodorkoff's delivery ratchets up; and things reach a frenzied pitch before the resignation of "It's all over. Isn't it?" over the outro.
"You think I'm pretty? Well, that's all I wanna hear. I'm watching my weight, so just buy me a light beer," sings Chodorkoff on "Ordinary Girl." "I'm nothing special. Yeah, I'm sweet and simple... I like what you like." Listening, it's hard not to think about some of the things we've heard said about women over the last 18 months. And then listening just a few days after...
Anyway...
The quiet, acoustic "Someone New" again touches on that theme of wrapping your identity and happiness up in someone else. "I'll be fine. I don't mind. This weekend, I met someone new; and he was just like you."
Closer "Follow (And It Was Spring)" is a slow march that layers and builds as it moves along. "I never wondered where you would go. Yeah, I'd just follow. Not ever know." And "Now I want you in the worst way."
Even as it swings between post-punk freak-outs and acoustic meditations, Worst Way is an amazingly cohesive set of nine tracks. It opens with a song called "Hello" and closes with a song that sums up pretty much everything we've heard so far -- allowing yourself to be consumed, losing your own sense of identity and self-esteem -- that also gives the album its title. Sequencing still matters, kids.
Worst Way is out now on Dazzleships Records, and Rosebug celebrate with a release show tomorrow, November 12th, at Berlin NYC that also features Kino Kimino, Color Tongue, and WADE.
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