Review Summary: An unlikely classic still in the making.
For the past few years, Sharon Van Etten's career has been steadily going up, without detours. While 2012's Serpents exposed her to a wider audience, even having some of its songs featured in popular TV shows, and 2014's Are We There was received extremely well by critics and (old and new) fans alike, 2010's Epic was the setting stone that pointed that the female singer-songwriter was one to watch out for.
In the almost 30 minutes that the records lasts, Van Etten manages to show some of the weapons in the arsenal that she would later rely on to create her future masterpieces. On opener A Crime, she delivers an acoustic ballad, reminiscent of her previous work, but with a remarkable difference: her stripped vocal performance, paired up with open guitar strums, resonates more confident than ever, and even when she sounds bitter, she does so with unmatchable strength. After this solo introduction, the full band joins her for what's to come next. On Peace Sings, Sharon's vocal harmonies start to shine beautifully, and continue to do so throughout the record, while on Save Yourself, the guitar, bass and drums are complemented by a pedal steel guitar and a piano, surrounding and trapping the harmonies in an ethereal vessel.
Epic finds its oasis, its resting place, in middle track DsharpG, where the harmonies, again, resonate like a celestial mantra and serve to gather the necessary energy to finish the short record on a high point. Don't Do It picks the tempo up a little, but not the spirit, as it deals with the subject of having a friend or relative confronting depression and contemplating suicide. Follow up One Day is the catchiest song on the record, with its guitar driven and radio friendly up-beat melody accompanying, again, a gut wrenching vocal delivery that paints the picture of being in a relationship where one of the parts obviously needs more than what the other is willing to offer, but still finds a kind of masochistic solace in accepting what is given, therefore striving to keep it ( 'Don't leave me now, you might love me back'). Nonetheless, the album reaches its emotional peak in closer Love More, where Van Etten finally catches a glimpse of a silver lining, realizing that what can be considered by all means a failed attempt at love, doesn't need to be a fully unnerving experience.
Almost seven years after its first release, Epic is proving to be one serious contender to stand the test of time. Unfortunately, we'll just have to wait and see if it does. In the mean time, it will just keep on playing, slowly, albeit constantly, becoming an appendage to the soul.
