I’m on holidays this week and
trying to enjoy every minute of it. But I’m not trying too hard. Trying too
hard to enjoy yourself is like paddling against the current; you’re just gonna
get tired before you ever get far enough out to make a difference.
Instead, you gotta relax and let
that free time wash over you. Let it lift you up, like the tide coming in.
Disc 1014 is…Burn Your Fire For No Witness
Artist: Angel
Olsen
Year of Release: 2014
What’s up with the Cover? This drawing made me think of a
bunch of women in 1920s bathing suits. According to the liner notes, the artist
is Kreh Mellick. I could impress you all by looking up information to share
about Kreh Mellick, but I’m just not keen enough on this picture to bother.
How I Came To Know It: I read a review for Angel Olsen’ 2016
“My Woman” and later bought the album. I liked it a lot, and it inspired me to
drill back through her earlier work.
How It Stacks Up: I now have all three of Angel Olsen’s full
length studio albums (I don’t waste time once I like an artist). All of them
are excellent, with very little to separate them. So much so I spent a while to
just listen to the other two and have them fresh in my head before I decided.
After all this groundwork, I’m going to say “Burn Your Fire For No Witness” is
the best of the bunch.
Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5
Take a
splash of Leonard Cohen, a dash of Patti Smith and a little Liz Phair, and give
them all the singing voice of a sixties pop star, and you’ve got something
approximating the brilliance that is Angel Olsen.
After
releasing the artfully understated alt-folk album “Half Way Home” in 2012,
Olsen begins to experiment in earnest with her sound on her sophomore effort, “Burn
Your Fire…” adding more rock elements and an almost symphonic sound that provides
a nice foil to lyrics that are introspective and insightful.
This is
a record that summons up a ball of moody darkness, fully immerses you in it,
and then fires complex soundscapes across it to give all that negative space
purpose. The result is a thick, echoing sound, across which Olsen’s high,
evocative vocals cut through, giving us comfort. The lyrics may be more about
doubt than certainty, but sometimes just knowing someone else is out there
doubting is certainty enough.
The
album’s opening track introduces this concept immediately. Even the song title,
“Unfucktheworld,” suggests the
combined concept of something that is wrong, but also that it can be fixed.
While “Unfucktheworld” could easily
be a larger geopolitical message, with Olsen’s intimate delivery, minor key and
single resonant acoustic guitar, it feels much more intensely personal. Olsen
evokes early Liz Phair here, albeit with more quaver and power in her voice. When
she sings “I wanted nothing but for this
to be the end” she sounds like a widowed bird, beautiful and tragic as it
sings its grief.
This is
immediately followed by the fuzz-rocked “Forgiven/Forgotten,”
a rock anthem that channels the early sixties and then washes it in the dirty
water of early nineties grunge. Olsen sings “I don’t know anything” over and over with a desperate questing urgency
that shows that while she may be lost, she’s not giving up.
With its
haunting guitar riff, and descending melody “White Fire” reminded me strongly of Leonard Cohen around his “Songs
of Love and Hate” period; stark and introspective. Here, Olsen shows her vocal acumen
through restraint, singing in a half-whisper, low and breathy and full of
doubt.
A lot of
the songs on “Burn Your Fire…” have simple guitar riffs that would be nothing
notable on their own, but Olsen knows how to combine them with bass, a bit of
feedback and a vocal style that fills already thoughtful lyrics with even more gravitas.
Halfway
through the album, “Lights Out” is
the hopeful anthem you need to sustain your spirits for the rest of the journey;
a shaft of light into the darkness right when you aren’t sure which way to
turn. This is a song about putting aside your self-loathing, finding whatever
strength you’ve got left, and building around it. Or as Olsen sings it:
“Just when you thought you would
turn all your lights out, it shines
Some days all you need is one
good thought strong in your mind.”
“Lights Out” is quiet in places, but this
quiet deliberate pace only serves to further highlight the inspirational
message as Olsen’s voice climbs up the melody, strong and vulnerable.
This
theme is revisited at the end of the record with “Windows,” an uplifting number of hope and support. Olsen’s vocals
are ethereal and haunting as she gently chides us to open a window sometime, repeating
the simple and insistent question “what’s
so wrong with the light?” until you feel foolish that you ever chose the
dark in the first place.
I often
think that having a positive outlook is a lot like choosing to turn the light
on before finding your way around a room. With the lights on, all the furniture
becomes obvious and easy to navigate around. Things you are looking for are
easily found. Leave that light off, and you will instead stumble into things in
the dark, skinning your knees, and grope blindly for things that are already easily
within reach.
You can’t
make people turn on that light and you shouldn’t judge those that haven’t done it too
harshly, because it’s a hard thing to do. I know because I’ve lived with it off
too, and finding that damned light switch can be the hardest search of all. I’m
not sure you can teach people to find it, but a song like “Windows” is about as good a clue as you’ll find. Just open your
heart and let Angel Olsen’s voice guide you there. Such is the power of great
music.
“Burn
Your Fire For No Witness” is a subtle record that requires a close listen. If
you want to have music to gab over while you play Parcheesi this isn’t the
album for you. Instead do yourself a favour, and give this one a listen on
headphones in a darkened room. Then, get up, let in the light, and get on with
your day.
Best
tracks: Unfucktheworld,
Forgiven/Forgotten, High & Wild, Lights Out, Stars, Windows
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