Photo: Devin Oktar Yalkin
When you’re ambitious, you do what you can to chisel out your chunk of fame. So what has Sharon Van Etten been doing? In following a singer-songwriter migration pattern that’s led her to Tennessee, New York, and California, she’s stockpiled her cred in indie circles (note her press release being penned by none other than Lol Tolhurst, a founding member of The Cure), appeared in a few movies, and even an episode of “Twin Peaks.”
But regarding her bread and butter—music—Van Etten’s been cranking out a reliable stream of confessional indie rock since 2009’s Because I Was in Love. Now, she’s got a three-piece band behind her, so after six solo efforts, she has released a self-titled debut of sorts with The Attachment Theory.
Van Etten’s voice stays an asset: tough, unwaveringly committed to lyric narratives, and melodic with stone-cut takes on femininity, or the unbearable weight of existence. Take the angelic intoning on “Afterlife,” which slightly pumps with soft keys and melodic bass before breaking into a desperate philosophical chorus. Or better still, “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like),” a song enveloped with her resounding lows sweeping into impressive heights—with angst reminiscent of Ian Curtis, and set amidst a mid-tempo, dance floor, post-punk pace that glows within a glistening synth landscape.
Will these expertly executed artistic visions make her even more famous? Now in her mid-40s, she probably doesn’t care. So yeah, they probably will.
