I got no roots, I count ’em…
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[5.86]
Alfred Soto: She’s from Germany, but she embraces a wanderlust that gets more charming and assertive with each guitar strum and elongation of ro-oo-oo-ts. Should pop radio come around to it, I can imagine the hook boring me.
[6]
Iain Mew: A run through all the obvious touch points of such a long-rooted genre is an odd choice for the message. The space synth counterpoint is a fun way out of that trap, but it comes a little too late.
[4]
Alex Clifton: Despite being about feeling untethered to a concept of home, “No Roots” is delightfully stompy and grounded. That opening bassline’s worth building a life around, structured and regular and solid. It only gets better from there: a hooky chorus and Alice Merton’s strong voice anchor this song straight in your brain. As someone who herself has loose roots (too British to be properly American, too American to pass as a native back in the UK, friends and family scattered like pins on a map), though, the lyrics read as a strange feeling of recognition: a life lived in and out of boxes, leaving in the dead of night never to return, how I left things in the corners of the world I lived in with desperate hopes I’d return. Over the years I’ve made music a home of sorts; I’ll count “No Roots” as a welcome addition to my collection.
[8]
Nortey Dowuona: I clicked off this slight guitar pop song for another one. It was Jain’s “Makeba,” by the way. Merton’s a good singer but she’s stuck moving against the song.
[3]
Hannah Jocelyn: Seemingly made for these sorts of tweets, and almost certainly something my mom will be singing at random intervals a few months from now.
[6]
Stephen Eisermann: Not sure if it’s the delicious guitar licks, the dirty bass, or the powerful percussion, but this combined with those electronic chords at the end make for one damn catchy track: pair that with Alice’s warm, deep vocals and you’ve got a winner. This song is the perfect first-apartment-after-leaving-home song; something you jam out to when everyone leaves after helping you move in and you’re both happy with your independence and nervous at the idea of being entirely on your own. This makes me want to crack open a beer, stand in the middle of my living room in only boxers, and just jam out.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: Merton deploys a killer bassline and some dirty guitar licks to get in your ear, and comes out the other seeming likeable without any sense of pretense. The song’s melody isn’t up to its confident rhythm, though it does give her lots of words to swoop on and doesn’t detract from the infectious strut that’s been worked up.
[7]