Lightning FayFeatured Blog Post: Sharon Van Etten April 4, 2012
On the first few listens to Sharon Van Etten's recently released Tramp (Jagjaguwar Records), it doesn't seem that the singer-songwriter strays too far from the musical formula she employed so well on 2010's epic. Songs of vulnerability, love and loss are rendered in a simple sonic space with Van Etten's soulful vocal taking center stage. But I knew there was something more to it when, despite feeling less than unbridled enthusiasm, I found myself spinning Tramp again and again, each time finding richer, subtler and deeper layers.
Less than two and half minutes long, album opener "Warsaw" gets things off to a brisk start. A driving mid-tempo guitar is supported by bells and building percussion throughout the first verse, after which the drums kick in fully and we are awash "in a color of sorrow." Despite the track's inherent melancholy, there is a sense of excitement to "Warsaw," as if Van Etten and her band are eager to set out and see where this record takes them.
Van Etten takes her foot off the gas for "Give Out," a lovely acoustic number that would be right at home on epic, if not for the small but notable lyrical steps she takes. Van Etten is a simple writer, but she's getting better at revealing herself without spelling it out for the listener. In "Give Out" she struggles with her confidence, but still finds the strength to deliver the line "You're the reason why I moved to the city/You're why I'll need to leave."
Up next is "Serpents," the album's lead single. Van Etten rocks harder on this tune than anything we've heard from her before. While the single isn't my favorite tune on the record (I think the singer's best moments are her quieter ones), "Serpents" is a powerful song, and it's really exciting to hear the singer spit the line "You enjoy sucking on dreams/So I will fall asleep with someone other than you." Venom indeed.
I don't know if it's despite, or because of, its exhausted sadness, but the next track, "Kevin's," is my current favorite. Throughout the song, Van Etten juxtaposes two of her voice's finest features: the clear, easy tone she employs to stretch out all the "ooh" sounds, and the mild rasp she uses to drag out lines with a weariness that's just shy of broken. After a nice dramatic pause at the three-minute mark, Van Etten delivers the line "Take on yourself/It's the only way I will breathe" with such a spent sadness that she's actually out of breath by the time she gets to the word "breathe."
After listening to "Kevin's" over and over -- each time getting more excited to hear her sing that line -- I realized that this quietly mournful lyric is actually the song's climactic moment. At first I found this really surprising. How could such a gently loping line be a climax, even in a song as subdued as this? But as I continued to listen, it made more and more sense. Van Etten's greatest strength is her voice and her willingness to embrace understatement.
There are many highlights on this tightly paced record -- the cathartic chorus of "In Line," the relentless build of "All I Can," the guest vocals of Beirut's Zach Condon on "We Are Fine" -- but it's that line in "Kevin's" that really embodies the strength of Tramp for me. Producer Aaron Dessner and a cast of fine musicians have done excellent work here fleshing out Van Etten's spare compositions, giving them a movement and variety that really serve the work. And I hope that Dessner and Van Etten work together again as it seems a great musical marriage. But at the end of the day it is Van Etten's gently haunting voice, so nuanced and pure, that leaves us wanting more.
