We named Caroline Rose an Artist To Watch almost exactly two years ago during the rollout for LONER, the album on which the former alt-country artist reinvented herself as an anything-goes energy ball. She’s continuing to lean into that impulse on follow-up album SUPERSTAR, due in March — and if the album lives up to the electrifying fun of Rose’s set opening for Deerhunter at Hopscotch this past fall, we all have much to look forward to.

SUPERSTAR is pitched as an album-as-film tracking a non-binary protagonist’s pursuit of fame and fortune in the wake of an accidental phone call from LA’s famed Chateau Marmont. “To me, there’s both humor and horror in hubris and what it takes in order to be successful,” Rose says in a press release. “I wanted to make a story out of those parts of myself that I find largely undesirable and embarrassing, then inject them with steroids.”

To wit, Rose’s self-directed video for lead single “Feel The Way I Want” finds her walking across America with pizzazz after discovering the audition her agent secured for her is actually in Hollywood, Florida. As for the music, “Fell The Way I Want” is a slinky synth-funk track about extending your self-determination all the way to the emotional realm: “Cause I am on a strike against my body and mind/ What once was pain is now pleasure of mine.”

Watch below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Nothing’s Impossible”
02 “Got To Go My Own Way”
03 “Do You Think We’ll Last Forever?”
04 “Feelings Are A Thing Of The Past”
05 “Feel The Way I Want”
06 “Freak Like Me”
07 “Someone New”
08 “Pipe Dreams”
09 “Command Z”
10 “Back At The Beginning”
11 “I Took A Ride”

TOUR DATES:
03/06 – Albany, NY @ The Hollow
03/07 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
03/11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Café
03/12 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Café
03/13 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern
03/14 – Columbus, OH @ Skully’s
03/25 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
03/26 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
03/27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
03/28 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
04/01 – Iowa City, IA @ Mission Creek Music Festival
04/02 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom
04/03 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
04/04 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Hall
04/24 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
04/25 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall: Upstairs
04/26 – Austin, TX @ Antone’s
04/28 – New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa
04/29 – Oxford, MS @ Proud Larry’s
04/30 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East

Superstar is out 3/6 on New West. Pre-order it here.

CREDIT: Cara Robbins