Step into the transformative blood, sweat and tears of "Your Gun" by Portland 8 piece Roselit Bone and you might swear you have heard THIS kind of music, sonic vision before, but you have not. Led by frontwoman Charlotte McCaslin with a potent bull whip crack of a voice, she snarls, yelps, growls and croons with a vocal countenance that pushes it's finger into your chest, and grabs you up close by your shoulders. The fun, dramatic, unfettered slap, tickle and rock and roll of their sound combines gothic country, rockabilly, punk and while I would be hard pressed to find direct comparisons riding on all or any of these genres landscapes, by horse of course, I thought of various other artists while chewing on the scenery of this song. Take this list as flash points or maybe imagine Roselit Bone as an amalgam of all of them or at least a part of Roselit Bone as a sonic or psychic amalgam of artists like Wanda Jackson, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Amigo The Devil, Those Darlins, The Gun Club, Neko Case, Amyl and The Sniffers, X, The Blasters and Diamanda Galas. Shit, I like that list, like it a lot.
"Your Gun" is pulpy, is dark, empowered, rated MATURE and from their latest album "Ofrenda" dropping August 25th, 2023. Charlotte McCaslin writes the music with the band and writes all the lyrics and judging by "Your Gun" (track one), I am guessing this new album promises a soul revealed, candid truths, poetic metaphors and transformations. "Ofenda" is the first album, first recordings since Charlotte's gender transition.
She shares:
“I feel strange when I listen to our previous album, Crisis Actor. The band played well, but the voice does not sound like mine and the person singing was totally lost, hiding behind characters on most songs. The album title is a hint that I knew this at the time. I'm glad it exists as a document of the turmoil before my transition, but Ofrenda feels more real to me. The band is tighter, my voice is my own, the arrangements are prettier. Where the lyrics are especially bleak, I tried to create a soft place in the music for the heart to rest.”
AND from liner notes:
[Regardless of where the needle drops on Ofrenda, listeners will be transported into a time of great tumult and transition in its players minds. Offering an explicit but tender look at Charlotte’s inner life, Ofrenda encapsulates the cycles of loss, survival and rebirth of the years between albums, which included a divorce, several family deaths, her gender transition, and the beginning of a new relationship – all set against the cataclysmic backdrop of the pandemic, a summer of police violence against her home city, and massive wildfires that blacked out the sun.]
"Your Gun" takes my breath away. I eagerly await "Ofrenda" poised with my oxygen tank near by.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.facebook.com/RoselitBone/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/37ycePIPQXwy6rXkjMLojU
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRJWcx88utGEGixh0hjp5JQ
https://roselitbone.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/roselitbone/
https://open.spotify.com/album/1iko5lDBlx9fLJ0lNQBUBM
After over a decade of touring, Roselit Bone have perfected an infectious and intense live show that has transfixed crowds in a nightly conversion ritual. Previously described by Oregon Public Broadcasting as “a unique type of gothic country rock that borrows heavily from Mexican ranchera music, rockabilly and the same lonely and wide-open spaces that inspired the classic Spaghetti Western scores of composer Ennio Morricone,” the Portland 8-piece – led by frontwoman Charlotte McCaslin – have deepened, shapeshifted, and outdone themselves on their latest full-length record, Ofrenda.
Album opener “Your Gun” begins quietly with guitarist Victor Franco’s tense, muted power chords as Charlotte seethes “I can’t stop crying long enough to fuck // and there’s a bullet missing from your gun.” The drums fire, and violent stomps and claps herald the arrival of the full band. Trumpets blare, violins swell, guitars thunder, and tambourine rattles convulsively. Saxophone oozes and bleats as the band stalks the ruins of civic and carnal relationships, and you know Roselit Bone is back.
While at times confrontational, showcasing the band’s unambiguous worship of early punk bands like Suicide and The Gun Club, there is a new level of subtlety and complexity on Ofrenda. Serpentine, distorted organs and Charlotte’s smooth, psychedelic guitar leads crawl through “The Sea In Silhouette,” a sultry, feminine anthem of collapse awareness. On “Vassal or Vagabond,” Charlotte’s arpeggiated requinto guitar channels the haunting ranchera of Chavela Vargas under the strains of Faith Grossnicklaus’ heartbreaking, elegiac violin. The sinister baritone of King Dude harmonizes with Charlotte on the song’s mantra “Be you a vassal or vagabond, you’re not to speak until fired upon // We’ve seen the work of your lesser gods and we are done pretending.”
Regardless of where the needle drops on Ofrenda, listeners will be transported into a time of great tumult and transition in its players minds. Offering an explicit but tender look at Charlotte’s inner life, Ofrenda encapsulates the cycles of loss, survival and rebirth of the years between albums, which included a divorce, several family deaths, her gender transition, and the beginning of a new relationship – all set against the cataclysmic backdrop of the pandemic, a summer of police violence against her home city, and massive wildfires that blacked out the sun.
These songs are still as visceral and heartbreaking as anything the band has done, but there is a new glimmer of hope on Ofrenda, the band’s first recordings since Charlotte’s gender transition. She reflects, “I feel strange when I listen to our previous album, Crisis Actor. The band played well, but the voice does not sound like mine and the person singing was totally lost, hiding behind characters on most songs. The album title is a hint that I knew this at the time. I'm glad it exists as a document of the turmoil before my transition, but Ofrenda feels more real to me. The band is tighter, my voice is my own, the arrangements are prettier. Where the lyrics are especially bleak, I tried to create a soft place in the music for the heart to rest.”
Roselit Bone is perhaps at their best on songs like this and “Truth or Consequences”, – a ramped up ranchera full of Jordan Vale and John England-Fisher’s exuberant horns and ever rising harmonies. These weary attempts to heal mark a new and important chapter for the band and a glimpse at the path forward. Looking back, listeners may even realize that the horrors of Roselit Bone’s back catalog were never fiction of Charlotte’s mind, but songs about the real, evil, living hell that we all survive.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/37ycePIPQXwy6rXkjMLojU
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRJWcx88utGEGixh0hjp5JQ
https://roselitbone.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/roselitbone/
https://open.spotify.com/album/1iko5lDBlx9fLJ0lNQBUBM
After over a decade of touring, Roselit Bone have perfected an infectious and intense live show that has transfixed crowds in a nightly conversion ritual. Previously described by Oregon Public Broadcasting as “a unique type of gothic country rock that borrows heavily from Mexican ranchera music, rockabilly and the same lonely and wide-open spaces that inspired the classic Spaghetti Western scores of composer Ennio Morricone,” the Portland 8-piece – led by frontwoman Charlotte McCaslin – have deepened, shapeshifted, and outdone themselves on their latest full-length record, Ofrenda.
Album opener “Your Gun” begins quietly with guitarist Victor Franco’s tense, muted power chords as Charlotte seethes “I can’t stop crying long enough to fuck // and there’s a bullet missing from your gun.” The drums fire, and violent stomps and claps herald the arrival of the full band. Trumpets blare, violins swell, guitars thunder, and tambourine rattles convulsively. Saxophone oozes and bleats as the band stalks the ruins of civic and carnal relationships, and you know Roselit Bone is back.
While at times confrontational, showcasing the band’s unambiguous worship of early punk bands like Suicide and The Gun Club, there is a new level of subtlety and complexity on Ofrenda. Serpentine, distorted organs and Charlotte’s smooth, psychedelic guitar leads crawl through “The Sea In Silhouette,” a sultry, feminine anthem of collapse awareness. On “Vassal or Vagabond,” Charlotte’s arpeggiated requinto guitar channels the haunting ranchera of Chavela Vargas under the strains of Faith Grossnicklaus’ heartbreaking, elegiac violin. The sinister baritone of King Dude harmonizes with Charlotte on the song’s mantra “Be you a vassal or vagabond, you’re not to speak until fired upon // We’ve seen the work of your lesser gods and we are done pretending.”
Regardless of where the needle drops on Ofrenda, listeners will be transported into a time of great tumult and transition in its players minds. Offering an explicit but tender look at Charlotte’s inner life, Ofrenda encapsulates the cycles of loss, survival and rebirth of the years between albums, which included a divorce, several family deaths, her gender transition, and the beginning of a new relationship – all set against the cataclysmic backdrop of the pandemic, a summer of police violence against her home city, and massive wildfires that blacked out the sun.
These songs are still as visceral and heartbreaking as anything the band has done, but there is a new glimmer of hope on Ofrenda, the band’s first recordings since Charlotte’s gender transition. She reflects, “I feel strange when I listen to our previous album, Crisis Actor. The band played well, but the voice does not sound like mine and the person singing was totally lost, hiding behind characters on most songs. The album title is a hint that I knew this at the time. I'm glad it exists as a document of the turmoil before my transition, but Ofrenda feels more real to me. The band is tighter, my voice is my own, the arrangements are prettier. Where the lyrics are especially bleak, I tried to create a soft place in the music for the heart to rest.”
Roselit Bone is perhaps at their best on songs like this and “Truth or Consequences”, – a ramped up ranchera full of Jordan Vale and John England-Fisher’s exuberant horns and ever rising harmonies. These weary attempts to heal mark a new and important chapter for the band and a glimpse at the path forward. Looking back, listeners may even realize that the horrors of Roselit Bone’s back catalog were never fiction of Charlotte’s mind, but songs about the real, evil, living hell that we all survive.
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