Head Of Roses (studio album) by Flock Of Dimes

From Mercury 04/03/2021 00:07

(Powerful, elegant, mature album from one of the most talented indie rock musicians of the last decade. This is an album that I don't think that badass 25 year old Jenn Wasner so many of us fell for back in 2011 could have made. This is a woman coming fully into herself and the delicacy and the balance of the album reflects that. Still, she wisely makes room for a couple Goddamn stone cold classic Wasner guitar solos to absolutely melt your face right off.)

I have had a long relationship with the music of Jenn Wasner. I still vividly remember in 2011 hearing the opening tracks of Civilian and feeling like I had just discovered the Next Great American Band. That album stunned me and blew my mind. At the center of my love of the album was the voice of Wasner, which could be both open and vulnerable and also savage, vengeful and intense. The other thing was her guitar solos and her sound. Her chaotic, noisy bursts on guitar are some of the coolest I've ever heard to this day.

Yet over the last 4-5 years I am ashamed to say I have fallen out of step with her career. Outside of listening to the occasional Wye Oak album when I saw one drop, giving it one spin, then moving on, I haven't thought about her music much lately. That's a shame. Because if this album is any indication, she is heading into a new phase, a new mature and wise phase, of her career. Glad I rediscovered her for this.

As for this album, it goes relatively light on the youthful manic energy of those Wye Oak guitar freak outs of old, and instead leans much more heavily on the softer side of indie pop/rock with subtle electronic sounds and lots of dreamy and otherworldly ballads. When she takes the music out of the stars and brings it down to more country/traditional indie rock songs, her voice shines. She seriously has the pipes to be a Lucinda Williams-esque country rock superhero. In the songs she lets lose on guitar she shows the world she still has that filthy, slicing, chaotic brilliance that she is known for. And I'm a simple man, I hear a Wasner solo and I cry. They are excellent here.

Overall, this album has a a beautiful balance between the dream pop, the grounded indie rock, and the explosive blues rock chaos. The sum of these parts is one of the most complete expressions of the whole glorious being of a great musician I've heard this year. It feels so great to have this album to listen to, and to have Jenn back in my headphones.