Rosegold

Stylistic shifts are a common thread within Ashley Monroes discography but the shimmering electronic glaze of Rosegold is still a shock. Maybe its modernism feels bracing because it comes on the heels of Sparrow, a deliberately old-fashioned album. Rosegold contains glimmers of residual warmth, especially in its enveloping harmonies, but its surfaces are brushed, not burnished. Guitars are buried or processed to the point that theyre a faint echo, and skittering rhythms are pushed to the forefront as they balance a wash of synthesizers and pianos, a blend that owes much more to mature pop than it does country. If there is a country touchstone, its Kacey Musgraves genre-expanding Golden Hour, a 2018 album that cheerfully blurred the boundaries separating pop and country, not to mention the past and future. Monroe doesnt indulge in any retro-fantasias on Rosegold. Everything from the sonics to the songs is immediate, existing in a hyper-aware present. The lack of instrumental country accouterments heightens the albums stylized spaciness; its not earthbound, it floats upon a breeze. Sometimes, Rosegold threatens to drift away yet its never threadbare: Its a singular mood piece, one that suits a spell of twilight reflection. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine