Angel Olsen: Burn Your Fire for No Witness

"Heartbreak, travel and transformation" informs the second full-length album by Missouri's Angel Olsen. You can add "love and regret" to that lyrical melting pot, if songs such as White Fire ("Everything is tragic, it all just falls apart/But when I look into your eyes, it pieces up my heart") are anything to go by. This is a stunning record, from the lo-fi crackle of opener Unfucktheworld to the grungy bounce of Forgiven/Forgotten and the insolent, Neko Case-like Americana of Hi-Five . Olsen nails the balance between intensity and playfulness, her malleable voice a particular highlight on the ramshackle jolliness of High & Wild , the crystalline purity of Windows , and quivering standout track Iota , the latter a spiritual companion of Roy Orbison's In Dreams . Soft and methodical in parts, abrasively ticklish in others, Burn Your Fire for No Witness is an engrossing record. angelolsen.com
Download: Forgiven/Forgotten, Iota