THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Everything clicks on Safe To Run, the fourth album from singer, songwriter, and perpetual searcher Esther Rose. It’s the quiet culmination of years spent fully immersed in a developing artistry, and presents Rose’s always vividly detailed emotional scenes with new levels of clarity and control. As with previous work, her songwriting transfigures the chaos and uncertainty of a life in progress, but here she introduces a newfound pop element that attaches unshakably catchy hooks to even the darkest stretches of the journey.
Rose takes an unblinking look at her own vulnerabilities as well as more universal concerns, somehow never taking herself too seriously in the process. This manifests as a critique of the insidious sexism of the music industry on Dream Girl, but quickly melts into a hazy memoryscape of the dive bar drama and suspended hovering of her early 20s on Chet Baker. The title track (a gorgeous duet with Hurray For The Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra) directly merges the personal with the global, superimposing feelings of spiritual displacement onto the larger, looming dread of climate grief. Rose breathes in the ecstasy of the natural world in one line and makes fun of herself a few bars later. There are ghosts in the room for most of her songs, but she’s invited them in and is cracking jokes with them over a drink or two.
After spending her formative years in Michigan, Rose relocated to New Orleans and got her start in music while awash in the unparalleled energy of the city’s scene. Over the course of her first three records, an infatuation with traditional country gradually evolved into a more distinctive style and increasingly personal material. Rose’s music traced her changes as she moved through stages, studios, and home addresses, and she eventually left New Orleans for Santa Fe, New Mexico where the two-year writing process for Safe To Run unfolded. Making the transition to this new environment after spending the better part of a decade building a life somewhere else demanded looking around and taking stock.
Making the leap from the comfortable to the unknown defines every aspect of the album. All the heaviness, sweetness, levity, and self-discovery that had led up to that point began funnelling into new songs that moved slower in order to dig deeper. Rose says, “My challenge every time I picked up the pen was: Not another heartbreak song, look around you. Writing from depths never explored and feeling sometimes like I was losing my mind, a softness unfurled. I’ve moved out of a chaotic, transitional place. I’m not running anymore. This album feels different to me than everything I’ve made before it. But who knows? I’ve traded hurricanes for wildfires.”
Ultimately all of these new advancements become twinkles of light in the background as they fold into the big picture impact of the songs themselves. Rose translates her world into 11 curious and captivating scenes. While the songs are stunning one by one, absorbing Safe To Run as a whole feels like witnessing something taking shape, experiencing the headspins of the elevation and the slow return to equilibrium as the clouds start clearing.”
