A Place to Go When You Need To Hide is the third album by Ithaca based Rose Alaimo, who plays all the instruments and sings on this album recorded on her Farm in Ithaca, as Rose is also a Vet and vegetable farmer. Additional production and mastering was by Jamie Hill at the Department Of Energy Management in Tacoma.
The album slowly fades into Meet Me Where I Am as the ambient drones are joined by clattering drums and guitars that drop out as the piano and vocals come in as the building and falling breaking apart coming together go on around a very carefully sung vocal lines seeking sanctuary, safe harbour in a world without heart.
Stars opens like it's a Christmas ballad, slow strings and a plucked acoustic guitar recall All About Eve at there most sparing, so grab the one you love tight as you finally feel alright once more.
Power Lines is a lot more forceful, being about some of Roses experiences during Covid, during one storm that brought down one of her trees along with the local Power Lines, that led Rose to seeing more of how we are all connected today, as the song has an acoustic breakdown shift, that musically connects her deep into folk mythology, before the full band come back to connect her to heartlands rock.
I Guess I Feel Ok feels like a natural reaction to anyone asking how are you? in the last few years, where just still being relatively healthy often feels like miraculous good fortune, as does living in places not ravaged by war, famine or other modern pestilences, as the music has close fraught edges, with a nervy intensity of tough times.
The Devil That You Know has a slow approach, as Rose seeks some comfort from all the worries of the last few years, with some good back woods mandolin, helping to keep this song rooted in Roses world.
Can't Find Me has strings keeping you calm as you try to lose yourself from all the problems chasing you down, this is a plea for quiet contemplation with space to breath.
Resist The Force is something we all must do in these torrid times, find ways to spread the peace and good feelings, no matter how dreadful we feel as the music goes all widescreen indie rock.
Between Sleep is according to Rose the hardest time, when your mind won't stop picking at your scars, on this melancholic slow rumination on creeping personal trauma, as the paranoia threatens to engulf you.
The Dark Of Light has wispy vocals, over a piano line and odd percussive elements, feeling the despair that comes when even the brightest day feels like your in the middle of a torrential storm, that keeps you looking for A Place To Go When You Need To Hide, as the song becomes more symphonic towards the end.
Here I Am is an acoustic plea for acceptance, as we all try to heal from the trauma all around us, make sure you find the shelter you need as the strings come in to lift us up.
The album closes with the radio edit of Resist The Force that popped a lot more for me, coming after the slow quiet beauty of Here I Am, as this jars in the ways it ought to, so go out there and Resist The Force and do good in the world
Find out more https://rosealaimo.bandcamp.com/album/a-place-to-go-when-you-need-to-hide https://linktr.ee/rosealaimomusic https://www.facebook.com/RoseAlaimoMusic https://musician.social/@rosealaimomusic
