Rosie Tucker is a born songwriter, an evocative vocalist, an accomplished rock instrumentalist, and a funny gender-queer art weirdo serving up truly fresh indie rock with an ear for the long queer lineage of politically conscious singer-poets like The Indigo Girls, Ani Difranco, Tracy Chapman, and Glenn Copeland. The songs that make up Tucker’s fourth LP, UTOPIA NOW! (Sentimental Records) are career-defining, aiming to make a watermark high above most every other songwriter in their genre. The album comes out on March 22, 2024

Everything to be loved about Tucker’s music is represented here with all pistons firing: the word-smith flex equivalent to a pre-workout protein shake with a Bang Energy chaser. The incisiveness, the casual references to history, poetry, and politics are out in full force: force in equal and opposite reaction to the force exerted by a country that strips rights from trans people and by an industry that prioritizes content over creator. Written solely by Tucker (with the exception of “Eternal Life”, a cover of an evocative recent Numero Group unearthing) and produced entirely by Tucker and longtime collaborator Wolfy, this most recent effort is both a homespun labor of love and a hi-fi, creatively ambitious swing for the fences. Recorded at their home studio in Altadena in between walking the dog and watching campy art films, Tucker’s latest album is a beautiful snapshot in time, a picture of healing from the isolation of both the global pandemic and the atomization of artists.

From the first line of the video for the latest single, “All My Exes Live in Vortexes” (“I hope no one had to piss in a bottle at work to get me the thing I ordered on the internet”) to the last line of “UTOPIA NOW!” (“I want nothing but unending bliss for my enemies”) it’s clear that this album is pulling no punches.