Sharon Van Etten
Are We There
May 26 2014 (Jagjaguwar)
8/10
Words: Alison Mack
On her fourth album, and first as producer, the Brooklyn songstress creates an absorbing confession piece of introspection and restraint as she ventures to lyrically brood on the past relationships that have seemed to dominate much of her personal life. Not that this is an album solely comprised of gloom and brooding regret; it is more a collective work of remembrance, some leaving a more disquieting taste in the memory than others.
'Your Love Is Killing Me' does not require the services of a psychoanalyst to plumb its depths when her primal falsetto and lyrics tell us, "Break my legs so I won't walk to you / Cut my tongue so I can't talk to you / Burn my skin so I can't feel you / Stab my eyes so I can't see." Likewise, 'Our Love' is laid out in lines of despair: "I'm reliving my own hell / Someone throws the ladder down / Still don't know what I have found in our love."
Unlike 2012's 'Tramp', the musical focus is less on guitars, and more piano and percussion. Opening track 'Afraid Of Nothing', is highlighted by its yearning keyboard notes; 'I Know' is a minimalist piano ballad, and the pounding drumbeat of pop closer 'Every Time The Sun Comes Up' shows not just a more humorous side - "I washed your dishes, but I shit in your bathroom" - but that Sharon Van Etten is both a writer and artist, not always easy to listen to, but hard to ignore.
No comments:
Post a Comment