Not everything is Twin Peaks, but Rockie does kinda feel like the album Donna Hayward would make if she could pursue her musical ambitions: She’d be influenced by Julee Cruise, for sure, and probably Chromatics, and Sky Ferreira, and what could be more Badalamentian than the cloudburst of synth that opens “On Our Knees”? Maybe you feel like you’ve seen this show before, but it’s actually the spooky and charming debut from New York songwriter Cate Osborne, aka Rockie Rode, an unassuming indie-pop record with the aura of a vintage cult classic.
In Rockie’s New York, there is no traffic, every jukebox is stocked with Sharon Van Etten records, and the road to heaven begins with a U-turn to Queens. Osborne produces on every track and sings in a dusky purr reminiscent of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval or Widowspeak’s Molly Hamilton, backed by big, fuzzy reverb and the Velvet Underground chug that feels like you’re headed uptown no matter where you are. In her syrupy blend of sounds I hear a hundred modern-classic indie folk records and also some of the left-field un-songwriting beloved by the internet: a little hair-raising Angel Olsen chill, a little misty Joanne Robertson blurrr. In the right light, like during singer Izzy Goldbow’s surreal, scene-stealing Tom Waits impression on “Nemesis,” the effect is of a newer weird Americana.
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Osborne’s music has a sincere country inflection—you could sneak “Prayin’” into a playlist with some old Waxahatchee tracks—and a restrained style. Her writing on Rockie often gives the impression that she’s workshopping a character called Rockie Rode, a despondent femme fatale with dreams of fame and true love. The album’s most vivid performances really play her up: gazing into the eyes of the muse in the rearview mirror and hitting that U-turn on the arresting opener “Do You Want to Take Me to Heaven,” with a “leopard heel on the gas.” I think of Lana Del Rey singing, “Let’s take Jesus off the dashboard.” In “I’m So Wasted,” Rockie gazes at a cross on the dash and begs for mercy with classic country pathos: “I’ve got enough tequila for the two of us/Isn’t that enough for you to stay?”
Rockie’s heavy stylization places its reference points rather too close at hand, giving the album the feel of a star student’s final project and simultaneously enhancing its title character’s ability to step in and out of a dozen stories. “On Our Knees” is a story of romantic betrayal and religious disillusionment that shares something with Ethel Cain’s gothic storytelling. Eternal faith means something completely different on the sweetly hedonistic “Vegas Night,” a collaboration with brother Gabe Osborne as “Joe Bux.” Rockie’s seen-it-all sneer reminds me of Smerz on “Sexy,” a slow, groovy duet with Brooklyn artist Samba Jean-Baptiste that ends with, “Even if I’m dressed a little bit basic/I still look/Sexy.” (Also on this song she says, “It’s been a rocky road I’ve taken,” and the fourth wall doesn’t budge.) She’s someone else entirely on “Rockie Karaoke,” throwing a harp glissando into the silence between “And I heard—” and “I’m not easy to love,” sung in Roches-style harmony with herself. She’s everyone everywhere and no one at all, and I’m prepared to believe in “Rockie Rode” the whole time.
