{"id":1816,"date":"2014-03-24T12:36:30","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T16:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/~reviewing\/?page_id=1816"},"modified":"2014-03-24T12:37:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T16:37:26","slug":"angel-olsens-new-cd-fresh-yet-retro","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reviewing\/?page_id=1816","title":{"rendered":"Angel Olsen’s new album fresh, yet retro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted March 23, 2014<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By KASSANDRA MEYER<\/p>\n

Right when you thought the female indie rock genre has been played out so many times, 27-year-old Angel Olsen comes along and proves otherwise; carrying with her a fresh, yet retro, sound when technology and cool sonic\u00a0manipulations dominate the scene.<\/p>\n

Olsen\u2019s second album,\u00a0\u201cBurn Your Fire for No\u00a0Witness<\/a>,\u201d isn\u2019t an experimental piece of work by anyone\u2019s standards, but it represents a vast step forward for Olsen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Olsen touches the core, transporting us to places we have gone and long forgotten. It is nice to see someone who still embraces sparse instrumentation and instills its emotional relevance.<\/p>\n

Lorde’s na\u00efve themes and electronic restraints or St.Vincent\u2019s complex guitar lines accompanied with her plethora of pedals \u2014try to capture Olsen’s emotional depth, but fall short.<\/p>\n

Olsen, on the other hand, with minimal strumming guitar, enchanting vocals and unpretentious style, lays her heart out on her sleeve. \u00a0\u00a0She first arrived on the scene with her 2012 album \u201cHalf Way Home.\u201d\u00a0 Unmistakably, Olsen was noticed and her album was revered, but in the way you can only really admire from a distance. \u00a0\u201cHalf Way Home\u201d sounded like the sort of record you might dig up at a southern flea market.<\/p>\n

Olsen\u2019s voice was a ghostly operatic trill and it danced above her bare acoustic folk and old-timey country songs like a flame flickering from a match. It sounded like some ancient relic, though one in miraculously mint condition, and its mysterious distance made for much of its appeal.<\/p>\n

\"Angel<\/a>

Angel Olsen<\/p><\/div>\n

Now for her new album, Olsen is signed to Jagjaguwar \u2013same label as Bon Iver \u2014 and living in Asheville, N.C.\u00a0 Musically, she\u2019s changed everything, combining her ghostly folk with some beautifully executed 1990s \u2014style indie fuzz and alt-country detours. But the great thing about the new album is this: Olsen suddenly sounds like a real person, not like some long-dead ancestor whispering to you in a dream.<\/p>\n

In her new album, Olsen\u2019s voice still soars, but with added potency from a full band and John Congelton\u2019s subtly muscular production. Recorded in an abandoned chapel, it\u2019s an intimate collection of songs ranging from the chugging, distorted \u201cForgiven\/Forgotten\u201d<\/a> to the sprawling \u201cHigh & Wild\u201d and the understated yet cathartic \u201cEnemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The majority of \u201cBurn Your Fire for No Witness\u201d revels in personal angst, proposing that the human condition is defined by our ability to trick ourselves into feeling comfortable while ignoring the chaos that surrounds us. That jaded worldview is especially present on the sparse, two-minute opener “Unfucktheworld” where Olsen suggests that devoting oneself to other people simply serves as a distraction from one’s past mistakes and lack of self-worth.<\/p>\n

The song\u2019s gentle strumming and steady gallop bares her voice, a between cross between Karen Dalton\u2019s seductive harshness and Patsy Cline\u2019s rich tone.\u00a0 She admits to a new love, \u201cI started dancing, just to be around you\u201d and later stops herself from getting too close, \u201cIt’s not just me for you, I have to look out too, I have to save my life, I need some peace of mind.\u201d Olsen convinces herself, over and over again the reasons to be alone; but ultimately breaks down, and reveals her true reason, as singing repeatedly, \u201cyou may not be around.\u201d<\/p>\n

This act of meaning making recurs as a theme throughout the album. In the song, “Stars,\u201d for example, Olsen wishes to “have the voice of everything” and in a moment of hatefulness and hurt realizes that the strength of fury results in the power she had been seeking all along.<\/p>\n

But, on \u201cDance Slow Decades,\u201d Olsen realizes that everything she thought was true might not be, that everything is based on perception. The subjectivity of experience allows one person to think a love could matter so much and another to treat it like nothing. Olsen sings \u201cDon\u2019t look around, it\u2019s not right, it\u2019s not wrong. Dance because you know the song. I dance because I know this one.\u201d The reclaiming of dance for herself and not tying it to another allows her to love again.<\/p>\n

As the Joan of Arc of shivering croons, Olsen is fearless and vulnerable. \u00a0Her lyrics are full of honesty, done with unapologetic certainty, even if the rhymes are sometimes predictable, she stands by them. Listening to her album, you feel a sense of ease and at times relief, almost as if you were sharing your worries and fears to a close friend.<\/p>\n

According to Olsen, these songs rose out of a year of \u201cheartbreak, travel, and transformation,\u201d but this is not your typical set of sad songs. Instead, it\u2019s more a record about what sad songs, what expression, can do for the sadness itself.<\/p>\n