Rose Hotel, aka Atlanta-based singer-songwriter and frontwoman Jordan Reynolds, has announced a forthcoming debut LP, I Will Only Come When It’s A Yes, due out May 31, 2019. Rose Hotel’s 2017 EP, Always A Good Reason, was passed around like a secret in music scenes and college towns from Athens, GA to Bowling Green, KY. The stripped-down intimacy was equal parts introspective and wistful, recalling a distant era when voices like Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris cut through the hiss of A.M. static. For I Will Only Come When It’s A Yes, Reynolds collaborated with a tight-knit band of musicians from Atlanta’s emerging indie scene — members of Material Girls, Neighbor Lady, Shepherds, Karaoke, and Palm Sunday. The result is a polished, full-band evolution of the lo-fi, bedroom origins of Reynolds’ first recordings under the moniker. Today, Paste Magazine shared the nostalgia-inducing music video for the album’s shoegaze tinged opener, “10 K,” praising, “Reynolds is a natural storyteller, and her roomy indie-rock fits right in alongside that of artists like Hazel English and Jay Som.”
WATCH: Rose Hotel’s “10 K” Music Video
Reynolds’ vagabond spirit heavily influences her storytelling, which dissects crumbling relationships and the disorienting feelings of striking out on your own. Having attended 11 different schools growing up, these have always been underlying themes in her life as she’s never felt tethered to one place for long. The majority of I Will Only Come When It’s A Yes was written after Reynolds relocated from Bowling Green, KY to Atlanta, GA in 2017, from a conservative college town to a sprawling Southern metropolis. These songs recall mercurial romances, alongside uncertainty and even relief in the geographical separation from her old life. Rose Hotel’s lyrics possess a keen emotional intelligence, her most striking songs delivered from an old soul’s heavy heart. From the project’s inception, Reynolds has honed in on a natural knack for processing complex emotional landscapes in precise, plaintive language: lines that are sweet on the surface, but soul-bruising on the second listen. On “10 K” Reynolds sings, “Nearly old enough but too young to understand / Time isn’t slowing down and I see wrinkles in my hands.” The deceptively dark lyrics juxtaposing the song’s bright soundscape.