Maggie Rogers embraces her creative and emotional independence on her third album, 2024's nervy and candid Don't Forget Me. Having emerged in a wave of viral fame in 2016 with her song "Alaska" while still a student at NYU, Rogers drew further acclaim releasing 2019's Grammy-nominated Heard It in a Past Life and 2022's Surrender. Those albums showcased her distinctive blend of folk, pop, and electronic dance influences and drew well-earned comparisons to the work of singer-songwriter's like Sia and Joni Mitchell. While Rogers seemed to embrace her success, building a loyal fan base with her steady global touring schedule, she also yearned for more -- she took time off to earn her graduate degree from Harvard Divinity School in 2022. Produced with songwriter and instrumentalist Ian Fitchuk, Don't Forget Me feels even more raw and uncensored than her past work. There's a diaristic quality to the album with songs clearly drawn from her personal life, as in "It Was Coming All Along," where she calls her mom only to discover her parents are thinking about selling her childhood home. The revelation seems to kick off an existential journey for Rogers as she contrasts her past need for love and companionship with her desire to stand on her own, regardless of how lonely or apart from her friends that makes her. It's a feeling of inner strength, of standing in her true self that she returns to throughout the album, as on the swooning Fleetwood Mac-esque "So Sick of Dreaming" where the revelation literally makes her "want to sing," admitting that though her heart is breaking, "there ain’t no diamond ring you could buy me to take me home." Musically, the album finds Rogers growing more musically assured and assertive, embracing the urgency and the wiry guitar rock textures of artists like Patti Smith or her contemporary Sharon Van Etten. This is especially true on "Drunk" and "The Kill," evocative songs that work as sharp yin and yang opposites; one is about running toward desire and the other is about being trapped by it like an animal. There's even a spare piano ballad, "I Still Do," where she digs into the throaty, slightly quavering aspects of her voice and leaves them unprocessed as they would be in a live performance. It's a bold choice and one that only serves to magnify the song's tenderness and poignant message of how our love for someone continues even as we accept that the relationship is over. Most redolent of Rogers' independent spirit is the title track, a slowly churning folk-rocker where she admits the messiness and heartbreak of love might just be worth it even if it's destined to end, just as long as it means as much to the other person as it does to her. She sings, "Take my money, wreck my Sundays/Love me 'til your next somebody/Oh, but promise me that when it’s time to leave/Don’t forget me." The song, as with all of Don't Forget Me, proves indelible.

1 It Was Coming All Along 3:27
2 Drunk 3:24
3 So Sick of Dreaming 3:52
4 The Kill 4:11
5 If Now Was Then 3:04
6 I Still Do 3:35
7 On & On & On 2:34
8 Never Going Home 3:30
9 All The Same 3:47
10 Don't Forget Me 4:25