Rozi Plain - Prize Review
Prize showcases Plain’s skills as a songwriter and builds on the unique sonic world that she has cultivated over the last decade.
There’s a cool indifference in Rozi Plain’s music that has a hypnotic effect on first-time listeners such as myself. At first, it seems to pass you by but before you know it an overwhelming urge to keep listening takes hold and the next thing you know, you’re hooked. It doesn’t need you to listen but it knows you will, the kind of music you’d find standing in the kitchen at parties.
Rozi Plain released her debut album back in 2008, after moving from the cathedral city of Winchester to the vibrant hustle and bustle of coastal Bristol. There she set up Cleaner Records with a collective of musical friends and family and embarked on a musical journey that has produced numerous collaborations, side projects, tours and solo releases.
Her fifth studio album Prize, sees Plain relocated again, this time to London, which is reflected in the taut kinetic melodies found on this latest offering. Prize begins with the lusciously laid-back Agreeing For Two. There’s a vacantness to her voice that somehow elevates the songs despite an apparent absence of emotion. You get the impression that vocally she’s capable of much more, but that would defeat the point. Half the charm of Prize is Plain’s detached execution.
Complicated is bristling with character. Like all the songs here, every element is crystal clear, pulled along for the ride by Plain’s wonderfully askew lyrics “I’m alive, you’re alive” she persists.
Third track Help is an album highlight, the first of many. Woozy drunken instrumentation provides the backdrop to Plain’s controlled delivery. It’s an album brimming with beautifully nuanced textures that ebb and flow just when you need them to.
By the time we reach Painted The Room, Plain has us in the palm of her hand. It’s a curious slice of electro-pop, which somehow still manages to sound like a folk song. Sore and Spot Thirteen ease things up a little before the fragile groove of Standing Up carries us through to the album’s best song Blink. Here, those dizzying synths and strings return, this time with a bit more threat, creating a slightly darker sound and providing a perfect curtain closer to a fantastic album.
Prize builds on everything Plain has done before. It’s bold enough to bring in new fans but familiar enough that it won't alienate old ones. We’re barely a couple of months into 2023 and she might have already served up an album of the year contender.