SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: SHARON VAN ETTEN – SHARON VAN ETTEN & THE ATTACHMENT THEORY

SHARON VAN ETTEN
SHARON VAN ETTEN & THE ATTACHMENT THEORY
JAGJAGUWAR

Sharon Van Etten is the master of her domain; with the arrival of “Seventeen” from 2019’s Remind Me Tomorrow, the artist had nothing left to prove, little else to give to an industry that – let’s be totally honest – didn’t appreciate her contribution. No knock against her devout fans or the independent music scene, but a fractured and facile audience fails to embrace 21st century genius in its time. It first must be prodded by TikTok trends or Netflix’s latest ephemeral content drop. 16 years into a solo career, Van Etten has “formed a band” by giving her longtime collaborators the Attachment Theory moniker as a courtesy hat tip and pronouncement of change.

As frontwoman on the self-titled Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory LP, Van Etten fails to obscure her vocal contributions through musical depth; she’s our attachment, our attraction, our lifeblood, tackling life, death, and everything in between on the showstopping album seller “Afterlife.” She sings, “Will you see me in the afterlife / Will you tell me what you think it’s like?” and that repeated refrain burrows, idles, and transcends the poetic simplicity of the lyric.

Returning to her low-key 2009 debut, the singer-songwriter’s greatest strength has always been the vagaries and emotional core of a lyric to prod our human condition, to revel in the sadness and revelry. The career-defining lung-capacity would come later, the lyrics propping up and justifying the bluster.

The band’s increasing jam-lite foreground, indeed, sees Sharon Van Etten searching alt classics for new inspiration, pushing the brand, exploring the space by borrowing bits and baubles. There’s a New Order synth and bass line opening the smart phone-inspired “Idiot Box,” a taste of St. Vincent and Depeche Mode on “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way),” and Boy-era The Edge and Larry Mullen, Jr. whispered sweet nothings to Teeny Lieberson and Jorge Balbi on the emotional album-ender “I Want You Here.” The result isn’t exactly a new direction, but emerging textures of a pre-existing condition. None of this sounds new, just subtext newly spotlighted.

And speaking of spotlights, she can’t avoid them, but the songstress adds some collab-friendly tricks to her vocal repertoire. Steady shoegaze-style monotone on “Indio.” Warbles and reverb mixed throughout. But in the end, she still returns to punch above her weight class, cascades of breath and commanding climaxes, swells of emotion, a rare tunnel of connectivity with the listener, an individual presence.

Spirits have been raised with less than when Van Etten concludes this album:

“And I want you here /
Even when it hurts /
And I want you here /
Even when it gets worse /
And I feel the change /
And I feel the rage /
sets the stage /
A moment.”

She leaves the stage to be tended by drums and synth, which dissipate as the emotion subsides, the final cymbal crash bleeding into silence.

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