After taking a year-long hiatus from releasing her EP, ‘Now that the Light is Fading,’ Maggie Rogers released her album ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ on Jan. 18. This album is unique, genuine, vulnerable and full of talent and heart.

Growing up in rural Easton, Maryland, Rogers started playing the banjo and singing folk music. Although her songs do not sound folk-like anymore, each song still tells a story, and components of nature are still used in her songs, like in ‘Overnight’ where the synths in the verses are made up of glacier and frog samples. Her song ‘Alaska’ was actually inspired from a trip she took there, which changed her life in more ways than she knew at the time.

During a master class at New York University, she played ‘Alaska’ for Pharrell Williams, and he was impressed. The video went viral, resulting in an EP and a sold out headlining tour, all within a year of her college graduation.

“Nearly everything that’s happened in the last two years has been an action or reaction related to that singular moment when this song was shared,” Rogers said.

Although ‘Alaska’ was on the EP, she also included it on the album, along with ‘On and Off’ because they “still emotionally really resonate with the story this record tells, and [she] finds new feelings in them every time [she] plays them live,” she said.

The story she is trying to tell is about her life, all the changes that have happened and where she is now. Each song is perfectly placed. The album starts with ‘Give A Little,’ a catchy song in which she wanted to re-introduce herself. Since her life changed so dramatically, it is only fitting that her second song on the album, ‘Overnight’ is about changes. She then goes on to sing ‘The Knife’ which is a fun, relatable “song about dancing with your friends,” Rogers said.

Track 11 on the album, ‘Burning’ has a similar positive vibe and is “a dance song about loving your life,” she said.

After ‘The Knife’ and ‘Alaska’ comes ‘Light On,’ which has great progression and is another song that is hard not to sing and dance along to. She has songs that she wrote for herself in different situations and different relationships like a crush from college. But ‘Light On’ is one for her fans.

In all her songs you hear genuine, beautifully crafted lyrics, but in this song especially you can see the risk she took and how vulnerable it is with lyrics including “crying in the bathroom, had to figure it out/with everyone around me saying, ‘you should be so happy now’” in ‘Light On.’

Her next song was the first one written for the album and is the slowest-paced on the album. ‘Past Life’ is the end of ‘Side A’ of the album, featuring just her voice and a piano with lyrics including “maybe there’s a past life comin’ out inside of me/maybe it’s the song I’m singing/maybe everything’s just turnin’ out as it should be.” One of the quickest-paced songs on the album is ‘Retrograde’ which is a song about a breakdown. The album ends with ‘Back in My Body’ where she sings about coming home to yourself.

If you’re looking for an authentic album full of songs to dance and sing (or scream) along to, this is perfect for you. Ellen Degeneres said it best after having Maggie on her show and commenting on her social media; “If this is the first time you’re hearing the name Maggie Rogers, I guarantee it won’t be the last.”