From the first notes of her 2009 debut, Because I Was in Love, New Jersey native Sharon Van Etten wrote with seeming effortlessness about the depravations of romance and the contortions of a heart either committed or broken, displaying a penchant for wrenching turns of phrase laden with dire implications. When she sang, “The moral of the story is don't lie to me again,” on “Consolation Prize”, it was the “again” that stuck in your gut, suggesting a pattern of aggression and acquiescence that would not necessarily end with the song. Her voice toggled fluidly between brave and broken, dogged and defiant—often within the same line. She whispered, then jumped to a fierce vibrato that could stop an army. Disclosing her darkest moments proved both empowering and unnerving, as though startled by her own strength. Even on her debut, she displayed the poise of a pro.
As with so many singer-songwriters—for whom lyrics and vocals take primacy over every other element—Van Etten never sounded quite so self-assured musically. Because I Was in Love showcased her quiet vocals and surprisingly nimble guitarwork, with producer Greg Weeks of Espers mostly staying out of her way. That subdued sound was going to be impossible to sustain for another album, much less an entire career, so it seemed almost inevitable when she introduced a full-band sound, complete with flourishes of pedal steel, on her follow-up, Epic. On 2012’s career-making Tramp, she worked with the National’s Aaron Dessner and emerged with her fullest and most fully realized album to date, even if it occasionally sounded overly decorous, even fussy. Her catalog has been a series of trials and experiments, driven by restlessness and perfectionism in equal measure, although weirdly the transitions between albums only serve to render each one more volatile and unpredictable.
It is, then, notable that Van Etten herself produced her fourth album, Are We There, with some assistance from Stewart Lerman. The two met while working on the second soundtrack to Boardwalk Empire and decamped to his New Jersey studio to record these new songs. Lerman’s work with Loudon Wainwright III, the Roches, and other singer-songwriters makes him a good fit for Van Etten, but perhaps more than any of her previous records Are We There sounds self-determined and self-directed. The music fits snugly against her vocals, with her guitar and piano foregrounded on opener “Afraid of Nothing”. As a result, these songs move fluidly and dramatically, but never ostentatiously. Even the woodwinds on “Tarifa” sound understated, as though careful not to distract from Van Etten’s performance.
It’s the most comfortable she’s sounded since Because I Was in Love, which is not to say the music lacks color or character. “Your Love Is Killing Me” is built on a Jenga-style assemblage of post-rock guitars and jittery snare taps, and even as it sprawls into a six-minute jam (her longest song to date), it never topples. Instead, the music only reinforces her repeated proclamation, “You tell me that you like it.” Elsewhere, Are We There softens and quietens. A purposefully stiff drum loop lends “Taking Chances” its brooding, conspiratorial tone, reining in the chorus and setting up an effective one-chord organ solo. The stark piano on “I Love You But I’m Lost” flutters nervously, as though reminding you that Van Etten’s whispers can convey screams. There is a live quality to the music, as though she has crafted each note with concerts in mind. Her songs emphasize the moment, both in the quality of her performance and in the rawness of her lyrics. As a result, Are We There may be her most present-tense album to date, her most immediate and urgent—the peak of a steady upward trajectory.
Even as she has settled into a successful solo career, Van Etten continues to write incisively about the volatility of love, with no loss of urgency or investment. Her songs tend to be excruciatingly confessional, largely indistinguishable from the singer herself, and Are We There reveals a new self-awareness with regard to her primary subject. On “I Know”, which features Van Etten alone on piano, she declares, “I sing about my fear and love and what it brings,” as though we didn’t know that already. On closer “Every Time the Sun Comes Up”, she asks, not entirely rhetorically, “People say I'm a one hit wonder, but what happens when I have two?” It’s a sly way to preempt any complaint that she has only one emotional or musical setting, but the next line turns the song upside-down: “I washed your dishes, then I shit in your bathroom.” Recently, Van Etten told Pitchfork that the line was originally a joke with her band, but it’s not hard to see why this incredibly anti-romantic line would have stayed in. It reveals the driving idea behind the album: It’s not the big moments that define or doom a relationship, but the everyday routines, the small sacrifices that accumulate over time, the stark realities of sharing your life with another person. You see them at their best and their worst, their most beautiful and their most vulgar. To her credit, Van Etten has never shrunk from this horrible and wonderful understanding.
