ALBUM REVIEW: Esther Rose’s ‘Want’ Is Her Most Settled Record Yet

Much has been written and poetically waxed about the tricky existential conundrums of the Millennial generation. But no one seems to nail it quite like Esther Rose, who has been quietly building a catalogue of powerful, achingly beautiful songwriting for the past few years. Across lo-fi, twangy foot-stompers and spare ballads, she sings in golden hues about following whims and getting involved with the wrong partners, feeling empowered by being untethered and teenaged nostalgia.

Her fifth album, Want, is a continued exploration of living in that indecisive discomfort. But despite all the directions that pull her, it feels like her most settled work yet. Rose’s confidence as a writer and performer has been steadily growing, and it is some kind of miracle to see her stepping so fully into the light where she belongs.

Want is the culmination of so much change. In the cranked-up haze of lead single “New Bad,” Rose confronts all the endless caverns of her desire and the many places it’s led her, for better or worse. “From the lakes of Michigan / To my friend Louisianne / And to old New Mexico / It’s my heart that I follow,” she sings with the reframing that what seemed like following lovers — something women are shamed for — might have actually just been Rose following herself, tuned into her own instincts and curiosities.

“Scars,” a dreamy duet with Dean Johnson, is one of a few especially tender moments on Want, along with the Elliott Smith-like “Messenger” and “tailspin,” that finds Rose contending with acceptance — of her vulnerability, baggage, anxiety, and ability to keep shape shifting as she’s called to. Want is as exploratory sonically, with threads of garage rock and pop that always let Rose’s gift for melody and articulation of all the thorniest parts of herself shine.

The title track and its reprise bookend the album with a gorgeous brain dump of needs that shouldn’t be contradictions but somehow have become so in a society that insists on an unattainable mode of perfection. Rose gives as much weight to the surface things as she does to the deeper ones, the simple pleasures of life like holding hands and birdwatching, and the really knotty struggles of intimacy, aging, and sobriety. What she ultimately finds on the final cut is her “capacity to hold it all and breathe.”

Esther Rose’s Want is due out May 2, 2025 via New West Records.