The remarkable third release by Brooklyn-via-Tennessee-via-New Jersey singer, songwriter and guitarist Sharon Van Etten is an album of entrances and exits, tinged with the wobbly awareness that something sinister is just as likely to be lurking around the corner as something sublime. “You’re the reason why I moved to the city / Or why I’ll need to leave,” she sings on “Give Out,” a bittersweet howl of a song with Neil Young undertones. Van Etten has a stunning range, easily shifting between the quick flicker of a sparrow-like soprano and a mellow, oak-aged drawl, and she and producer Aaron Dessner (a.k.a. The National’s multi-instrumental ace) use her multitracked vocals as building blocks to shape the colour and tone of the songs. Dessner brings a similar sense of nuance to the arrangements here, using ornate flourishes sparingly, and often in a way that catches you off-guard.
As an album, Tramp’s strength is also its one subtle failing—it has a strong, deliberate narrative arc, moving from turmoil through catharsis to tentative hope, and though the meandering midsection slows down the momentum, the conclusion is deeply satisfying. As the great poet-bard Dan Wilson once mused, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Wilson may have written those words for his ’90s one-hit wonder band, Semisonic, but the sentiment ripples through Tramp—it’s as much about closure as it is about renewal.
Playlist picks: “Serpents,” “Leonard,” “All I Can”
