Review Summary: Angel Olsen's new release offers a near perfect balance of attitude and tenderness.
My Woman is an album split into two very distinct halves. For Angel Olsen this was a decisively clever move. The first half of her third full length serves up some Liz Phair Exile in Guyville-esque grunginess while the second beckons a very tinder, sweet and instrumentally dense side to her music. The opener “Intern” is a beautiful piece of melancholia with engaging lyrics about going through the motions of working/romantic life, embellishing the elegiac tone of the album. “Never Be Mine” is a sweet yet dingy piece of pop music that could have easily been a hit in the mid 90’s gen-X heyday, as well as my favorite cut off the album “Shut Up Kiss Me”. This is a song with attitude to spare and an endearing chorus that’s extremely sweet but in a cute, rough around the edges way that’s just irresistible to me. It’s common to hear 90’s revivalism now a days, particularly in indie rock, but Angel is doing it with such style and class on this album that it elevates it beyond simple revivalism and recalls what was so great about records like "Exile in Guyville" or PJ Harvey’s "Dry".
The second half of this record shifts gears down quite a bit but doesn’t lose any of it’s steam, even with two tracks that push the seven minute mark. “Heart Shaped Face” is a sweet little slow burner that slightly recalls more alt-country influenced work and has some fantastic vocal harmonies towards its back end. “Sister” is huge highlight for me with it’s spirited and sad lyrics about teaching life lessons to a sister that I believe only exists in Angel’s imagination. It’s a sad one, yet very hopeful and builds to a fantastic close that damn near brings a tear to my eye as she pines repeatedly “All my life I’d thought I’d change”. The song “Woman” has a similar structure but not to seem repetitive Angel brings this track together well with another beautiful instrumental arrangement. From the sparse palm muted guitar, ethereal synths, and Angel’s beautiful yet fragile voice front and center, you can almost see the spotlight set solely on her as she moves through landscape of this somber track, until it kicks into it’s completed form for a final act that crashes like a gentle tidal wave before the close.
This album proves that Angel is a surprisingly versatile singer/songwriter with a clever duality at work on this album. It’s a clever mix of to the point romantic aggression, and down-trodden melancholic songs with an ambiguous lyrical beauty. I don’t have to much in the way of major gripes with this album, other than maybe two songs that underwhelm me a little bit, the closer being one of them. Nonetheless Angel proves herself very capable of writing songs that don’t just fall into one specific mood or time and place. With so many singer/songwriter contemporaries it is easy to get lost in the shuffle but if you’re looking for something charming, something with a sweet old soul that is distinctly new or just something to get over that nasty break up or existential sense of longing My Woman might be the Woman for you.
