With Maggie Rogers subtlety may be hard to find, but wow, what a primal force in her voice ★★★★☆

wrote six years ago de Volkskrant about the discovery of a new singer/songwriter. Maggie Rogers from Maryland dropped her number Alaska heard Pharrell Williams in a masterclass and was stunned by so much talent. Rogers got a record deal with Universal and her debut album Heard It in a Past Life debuted at number 2 on the US Billboard 200 in 2019.

Still a bit of a false start, because the record suffered from overproduction. Roger’s second sounds better and shows that that primal power in her, her voice, has not died down yet. Although some songs are gone Surrender so crammed that they balance on the edge of opulent and lavish. In Because Want offer bass and drums so hard that they coalesce into a leaf blower on anabolic steroids.

It is Rogers’ voice that ultimately towers over everything and saves the case. That and the fact that with golden stylistic combinations she makes songs that sound familiar and adventurous at the same time. In Be Cool she combines an electronic hip-hop rhythm with powerfully served lyrical pop. At a moment like this, it sounds like the goodness of Lavigne, Morissette, and Etheridge has sailed into one person. And in Shatter she flawlessly captures that unchanneled zest for life of kids in a bratpack movie from the eighties. You forgive her if the subtlety is sometimes hard to find.