Emily Rose and the Rounders - Emily Rose and the Rounders (2022)

Idippedi into this one the other day, but its time to give the whole album a proper listen as it releases this week. Emily Rose Epstein has popped up in quite a few RSTB-loved bands, including stings drumming for Ty Segall, and vocals on Sonny and the Sunset and Pink Mountaintops records. Here, she swerves pretty far afield from those heavier endeavors for a record of classic outsider country, finding solace in a sound that’s more George Jones and Patsy Cline than prog these days. With odes to drinking, love, loss, and lament. While there’s been a surge of rock gone country lately, a lot have leaned towards the psychedelic end. Emily shakes off the bleariness of that school to dive into late night barroom closers and jukebox staples for the lone drinker.

Her resonant croon pours over the thrumming twang of the Rounders behind her, a band built of L.A. friends potent enough to ‘turn goat piss into gasoline’ as the expression goes. The guitars twang under the hot lights, the pedal steel skates on sweat, and the fiddle twirls like a skirt on the dancefloor. Channeling sadness and a stung heart into eight bouts of classic country careen, this debut from Rose and The Rounders is poised to steal the Nu-country spotlight off a few of her more high-profile peers.