Kevin Bronson on March 24th, 2021

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Rosie Tucker’s new single “Habanero” is hot like Rosie Tucker songs are hot: beautifully sung and boldly played, hopelessly trapped in dualities and smiling about it, finding metaphors in the darnedest places (tadpoles!) … all setting you up for a punchline you’ll remember for years.

In this case: “Wouldn’t we be perfect together if we wanted exactly the same thing?”

The arrival of “Habanero” presages the arrival of Tucker’s third album, “Sucker Supreme,” out digitally on April 30 and on CD and vinyl on June 18. It’s the first under the singer-songwriter’s new deal with Epitaph Records. The album will include all three singles Tucker has released since the 2019 full-length “Never Not Never Not Never Not” — “Ambrosia,” “Brand New Beast” and “Arrow” (the latter a remake of a song by anti-folk singer Jeffrey Lewis).

Like that 2019 album, “Sucker Supreme” was produced by Wolfy. It features Tucker backed by guitarist Jess Kallen and drummer Jessy Reed.

Tucker has this food for thought about “Habanero”: “The first two verses of ‘Habanero’ are about flirting, which is an important distraction from both the problems of the self and the issue of mortality. Desire is not the same thing as a sense of self, but it’ll work as an added sugar corn syrup kind of substitute. The third verse pulls from an early memory of a stream dense with tadpoles, watching them wriggle around my fingers in the water. I was obsessed — obsessed — with amphibians in general, and frogs in particular. I loved that they couldn’t be confined to one environment. I loved that they grow up by way of shape-shifting.

“I’ve spent a lot of time refusing to come to terms with the fact that I am stuck with myself, being the person I am all the time. I have gotten adequate at living while impatiently waiting for the smarter, kinder, better looking version of myself to come along, lead me out back, and put me out of my misery.”

Katharine White directs Tucker in the video.

||| Watch: The video for “Habanero”

||| Previously: Quarantunes, “Never Not Never Not Never Not,” “Ambrosia,” “Gay Bar,” “Fault Lines”