By Ian Bremner

Esther Rose sings ’em as she sees ’em. There is no fluff, no trends, no tricks to her work. When the songs are good, you don’t need much else. On her 2nd record, You Made It This Far, the New Orleans songwriter sings as pure of country songs as you’ll hear in 2019.

Backed by little more than a fiddle and snare drum, Rose sings in utter deadpan beautifully about love and loss, Sex and Magic. On the closing track, Don’t Blame It On The Moon, the female subject in the song is left alone with her thoughts outside the bar at 2 am. There’s a southern mystique in considering magnetic forces of the moon as a culprit for your lonely heart. Few artists can truly conjure those spirits in song, but there is something in the water in New Orleans, and Rose is one of those artists.

In a society where a lot artists are playing dress up and singing old “folk” tunes, Esther Rose’s songs run parallel in complete reality. When you’ve spent years in and around honkytonks and campfires singing songs like Esther Rose has, you don’t need to pretend.

You Made It This Far is out now on Father Daughter Records

Listen to You Made It This Far via spotify

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