Sharon Van Etten

Just like the antique Peugeot that whisks Owen Wilson to the Parisian 1920’s in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, Sharon Van Etten’s voice has a magical quality of transposition. Nostalgic, smoky and steeped in vulnerability, Van Etten’s voice evokes a bluesy, bedimmed haunt that is saturated with smoke, pierced only by her pain, emanating from a cramped stage in the corner. Despite being so effective at capturing a specific moment—and with the same folk melodies and introspective lyrics from her first two releases—Van Etten’s third album, Tramp, demonstrates her versatility outside the vision of a lovelorn cabaret songstress.

“Warsaw,” the first track off the album, sets a precedent by incorporating a heavier sound over Van Etten’s usually delicate compositions—the electric guitar kicks in within the first second, accompanying her soft lilt. “Serpents,” the loudest track on the album, makes full use of this progressive style, positioning Van Etten as a powerful front-woman in an alt-rock band reliant on a blaring guitar and steady drum beat.

But Van Etten’s albums have always been a spectrum of emotions, and the more explosive howls are offset by slow, seething tales, such as the album’s standout track, “Magic Chords.” Van Etten demonstrates her effortless ability to write lyrics that are at once refreshingly honest but achingly difficult to confront. Her repetition of the phrase, “You’ve got to lose sometime” captures her sometime-defeatist attitude toward love; however, in “We are Fine,” Van Etten’s duet with Beirut’s Zach Condon (of equally redolent vocal power), she calls upon her partner for guidance, singing, “Take my hand and squeeze/ Say I’m alright.”

Tramp, like Van Etten’s other albums, contains the private confessions of a therapy session, but reveals new signs of breakthrough and healing. Exploring a variety of nuanced emotions and coping strategies on each individual track, Van Etten embraces her own idea about love, replete with the uncertainty and contradictions.