Are We There
27 May 2014
Jagjaguwar
4 stars out of 5
Coming a couple of years after her acclaimed Tramp, Sharon Van Etten’s fourth LP, Are We There, is a step forward in both
composition and intensity. The songs here are all angry muscle and dark stares,
just as ready to cut you and let you bleed out as they are to do your dishes
and hang out watching TV on your couch. There’s no warm nostalgia here, just
pain and scars; nor is there regret or self-pity, just a list of the hard
facts.
“Taking Chances” is as good a dark love song as any that’s
come out in the last few years. Its retro electric organ percussion is deceptive:
this song is not happy times. Nor is the next track, “Your Love Is Killing Me,”
in which Van Etten delivers with a powerful wail, “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.” Starting to get the idea? The album’s
closer, “Every Time the Sun Comes Up,” is an instant classic, timeless in its
composition but fresh and new in its execution.
It’s rare to have such unmasked emotion in a recording these
days, and to have an artist confident enough in her songs to fill them with
only her voice and her words rather than with a thousand little embellishments.
Are We There is a strong statement,
one that leaves you with new bruises with each listen, and I, for one, will
probably be covered with bruises by the year’s end because of it.
reviewed by Richard Krueger
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