Nashville once was it's famously called the “ten-year city,” because that's about how long it takes an artist to get there. Maggie Rose is more into it. Along the way, she struggled to break into mainstream country music by subjecting herself to the machine: playing CMA Fest in the midday summer sun, visiting countless radio stations, and releasing country singles that went nowhere.
Finally, she had had enough. In 2018, with her aptly titled LP It changed everything, Rose raised her hands and began to make the music that spoke to her. While retaining country elements, it was full of soul and R&B and helped the Maryland native cultivate a new audience. Its follow-up in 2021, Have a seat, took Rose's sound even further into rootsy country-funk, and found an unlikely home with the jam-band crowd (she's played with everyone from Marcus King to Devon Allman). On Rose's latest album, stellar No one gets out alivecements her reinvention as one of the most successful in Nashville history.
No one gets out alive she glides with good vibes and showcases an artist with complete confidence in where she is. “I don't need a golden ticket to join the club/cause I'm already in it,” he sings on the delicious stubbornness of “Underestimate Me.” “Wherever I land I'll stick/Maybe it's a dream, but for me I'm living it.”
It helps that Rose has such a powerful voice to work with, and that she no longer has to box it into the parameters of a country radio song. It ramps up on the title track, which opens with delicate piano notes and Rose's declarations to live life unhindered: “buy the house, visit Rome/Wear the show-stopping dress.” It's a five-and-a-half-minute work that crescendoes with Rose's pipes cutting a path through a Abbey Road– like a wall of sound.
Produced by Ben Tanner, the album evokes vintage Carole King and Joni Mitchell, the Laurel Canyon scene and hints of Eighties Sade. Rose also has her own Wrecking Crew behind her: guitarist Sadler Vaden and drummer Chad Gamble of Jason Isbell's crack 400 Unit, keyboardist Peter Levin and bassist Zac Cockrell laid down the grooves with the help of two members of Rose's band , key player Kaitlyn. Connor and guitarist Kyle Lewis. As such, there is a natural quality to the recordings – these are musicians who clearly know each other.
Rose is at her controlled best on ballads like “Too Young” and “Vanish,” but allows herself to rock with abandon here and there (a few more moments would be welcome). Chief among them is “Dead Weight,” which kicks off with a Stones-y riff before Rose begins to break free from a person—or entity—holding her back.
Could it be Music Row? Despite the release No one gets out alive on Nashville's Big Loud Records (home to Morgan Wallen and Hardy), Rose sounds free of that regimented past. She is both out of the game and fully alive.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/maggie-rose-no-one-gets-out-alive-review-1235000895/
