ALBUM REVIEW: Caitlin Rose Returns Rejuvenated With ‘Cazimi’

There are a million things that could get in the way of finishing an album, and the courage it takes to do so cannot be overstated. When Caitlin Rose’s first new album in nearly a decade was derailed in early 2020 for obvious reasons, it could have been taken as a sign it just wasn’t meant to be. Instead, it turned out to be a blessing, giving Rose time to sit with her songs and fall in love with making music again. Following her acclaimed 2013 sophomore album The Stand-In, Rose’s spotlight felt too hot to be sustainable. Cazimi is the result of some needed breathing room.

Caitlin Rose (photo by Laura E. Partain)

Rose’s voice, crystalline and sweet, has been sorely missed, which makes Cazimi feel like a reunion with an old friend, one who has been wounded and has picked up the pieces of a broken heart a time or two. Rose’s songs show someone who knows what she wants, accepts all parts of herself a little more, and has let go of the dead weight. Jordan Lehning’s production of Cazimi is light on its feet, airy in all the right places, and thoughtful with Rose’s tenderest vocals. For her part, Rose can still deliver a radiant melancholy deep enough to get you choked up. This is especially so on bittersweet doomed love affair “Carried Away,” and on the swooning ode to hopelessness “Blameless.”

In the past, Rose was never one to fit squarely in any genre, particularly country music, and she always toed the line of pop songwriting. Cazimi embraces her gift for soaring melody and earworm choruses on songs like “Nobody’s Sweetheart,” “Modern Dancing,” and the Courtney Marie Andrews-assisted “Getting It Right.”

“Cazimi” — an astrological term for when a planet is in such proximity to the sun, it’s basically in the heart of it — feels like an apt description of where Rose has found herself this go-round. Less afraid of the burn, ready to bask in the glow.

Caitlin Rose’s Cazimi is out Nov. 18 via Missing Piece.