On her breakthrough 2014 album, Burn Your Fire For No Witness, Angel Olsen channeled poet-philosopher greats who managed to render their melancholy with a sublime, almost cosmic gravity—Leonard Cohen and Hank Williams came to mind often—as she alternated between skeletal acoustic torch songs and spiked, fuzzed-out hexes with preternatural grace. Olsen’s follow-up sees her diversify her sonic palette with the help of producer Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira), outfitting a pair of disarmingly slick lead singles in “Intern” and “Shut Up Kiss Me” with lush synth layers and Mellotron.
Even My Woman’s back half, which features Olsen’s two longest, most challenging songs to date in “Sister” and “Woman”—though neither come anywhere near “White Fire” levels of morose—succeeds largely due to Olsen’s remarkable ability to make her loneliness sound like so much more than just that.
—Möhammad Choudhery
