by Dominic Acito (@mycamgrlromance)
Having written this album during a two week stay at a farm and adding the sounds of Omaha’s David Nance Band to back her carefully written songs, No Medium is a very different album from Rosali’s previous releases. Where, on her 2018 album Trouble Anyway, Rosali has songs with instrumentation that takes inspiration from bands like Dinosaur Jr, No Medium has an unmistakable Americana flavor to it. The album has moments where you forget you are listening to a new release and could easily convince someone that you are listening to The Heartbreakers complete with twangy guitars and roaring solos.
While this is a shift in style musically, Rosali’s songwriting remains as strong as ever taking on some heavy subjects on this record, often referring to loss and mortality. These subjects don’t feel so heavy as they are handled with a delicate warmth that Rosali pulls off with ease. “Pour Over Ice,” in which the ‘you’ in the song is directed to a past self who is struggling with alcohol addiction, is a song that lends itself to rolling down the windows on a warm day and turning up the volume.
The songs on No Medium were written at a North Carolina farm, which infused this record with lyrics containing references to nature, with songs like “All This Lighting” comparing the chemistry between two people to the electricity of a storm. It's an incredible moment of country styled ballad writing, where Rosali sings “I want to slow dance with you to someone who can really sing” while both providing a beautiful song to slow dance to as well as the voice of someone who can really sing. Through this Rosali reminds us of the power of the natural world but also that we ourselves are forces of nature. While nature figures strongly in the writing, there is occasional mention of the supernatural, with the song “Your Shadow” where an unexplainable experience reminds us of the presence of deceased friends in our lives.
No Medium is an album that lives up to its name, it’s a very large album in terms of the scope of songwriting and its sound. It has tight performances that make it sound almost like a live album and the cohesiveness that many older bands strive for but fall short. While the songwriting feels fresh, the musicality of this record serves as a rebuttal to many classic rock fanatics who claim “they just don’t make music like they used to.” The answer that No Medium provides is the counterpoint.