"This is very, very, very surreal."
Once again in my journalistic tenure, I turn to the subject matter of Sharon Van Etten - the 38-year-old singer-songwriter from New Jersey who has seemingly pursued every artistic career avenue in her short lifetime - however, this time it’s within the stoic setting of The Roundhouse. Having melted my ears with her latest LP, Remind Me Tomorrow, laced in 80's pop ballads and art-rock, Van Etten indented a ‘must-see' stamp on me for her upcoming UK tour. With her simultaneous dabblings in the frequencies of TV and film, Van Etten stamped herself further this evening as one of the most pertinent female artists currently.
Commencing the night with the buzzing basslines of her recent LP, Van Etten launched into two of her most popular recent tracks, ‘Jupiter 4’ and ‘Comeback Kid’. Whilst the sound mixing between the basslines and other instrumentation laid on stage proved fraught, the slow-burner inception to the set candidly portrayed Van Etten’s genuineness, exclaiming “my love is for real”. Reminiscent of Springsteen's seminal Born to Run embedded in her latter track, Van Etten’s empowering lyricism ultimately bolstered the impressive start to the set in excavating her latest repertoire.
This soon gave way to the more straightforward, folkier tones of her past discography, reciting such tracks as ‘One Day’ and ‘Tarifa’. These subdued respites from the swelling emotions of her poppier recent LP was more than welcomed by the respective audience of The Roundhouse who revelled in the reminiscent sounds of Joni Mitchell, Nick Cave, and Patti Smith. With these influences in mind, the cover of Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’ seemed more than appropriate for the slower yet politically-charged tones of this evening, with her acknowledgement that “you have Brexit, we have Trump..”. For the folkier discography, however, it seemed evident that Van Etten was more comfortable with these live sounds mixing, basking in their simplicity and harmonious potency.
In spite of this, the majority of tonight’s proceedings came from Van Etten’s latest LP - the true stand-out tracks being ‘Hands’ and ‘Seventeen’. With the former exuding an all-encompassing yet amorous chorus, “put your hands on your lovers, I’ve got my hands up”, Van Etten’s distorted vocals mixed perfectly with the bold instrumentation blasted from her entourage. For the latter track, the indie ballad-pop facade impressively continued this trope of strongly contested vocals burgeoning to the chorus’ fore in an exclamation of anger and reclamation, “I used to be seventeen, now you’re just like me”.
With the main set drawing to a sombered close, with ‘Every Time the Sun Comes Up’ and ‘Stay’, the harmonised instrumentation at the heartbroken chorus of the former was a sonically beautiful culmination in spite of latter’s drawn-out and elongated nature. The reverberating chord progressions returned once again as we then descended into the final few tracks of the encore, commencing with the starter track from her latest LP, ‘I Told You Everything’. Easing the crowd back into the last drips of her discography, Van Etten thereafter plucked the straightforward indie-rock track from her 2012 LP, ‘Serpents’, as the successor - offering an immense lift to the set's conclusion.
Continuing her notion of love within our current politically-destitute world, the slow-burner folky finale track, ‘Love More’, became comparatively less memorable to its raucous predecessor. Yet in spite of the bittersweet culmination to the evening, Van Etten proved her rise through the musical ranks of her near-decade-long career. Now trespassing into the waters of subdued, 80's ballad-pop, which I duly admired in my review earlier this year, the sound mixing proved vexatious at certain points, with the bass levels unable to compete with the other intricate instrumentation. Nonetheless, nothing can be taken away from the figurehead this frontwoman has become over the years and certainly reaffirmed tonight. Occupying her time within the other world of screen business, I truly admire her tenacity to pursue such musical avenues of experimentation with poppier incorporations into the indie-folk rock genre which has seen great triumphs this decade - with Van Etten near the forefront.
7/10
Sharon Van Etten’s latest LP, Remind Me Tomorrow, is out now and can be found here. Van Etten will be playing further UK dates this July - tickets can be found here.
Photos are courtesy of Gigwise's Katie Willoughby - article can be found here.
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