With “Burn Your Fire For No Witnesses,” Angel Olsen releases a stunningly exciting sophomore album that is as captivating as it is fresh. She has been heavily promoted throughout the “indiesphere” for the past few months with features on sources such as the major music blog, Pitchfork. Lead singles “Hi-Five,” “White Fire” and “Forgiven/Forgotten” have slowly built up the fire Olsen and her label Jagaguwar Records started. This is the first time Olsen has recorded with a band and she delivers the sultry vocals over fuzzed out guitars that we all want to hear, but she also succeeds in creating an intelligent record that deserves repeat listens.
This is an album full of experimentation, featuring a young singer given the opportunity to create something new and exciting, and it feels like Olsen has taken advantage of it. She built up the correct amount of buzz to stir the pot a bit and then delivers with an enchanting and powerful record that both delights and wows. The album is filled with slow burning love songs as well as toe thumping, guitar-driven rockers. Olsen’s voice blends well with the cacophony of noise that goes on behind her.
With the help of a modest yet agile backing band (drummer Josh Jaeger and bassist Stewart Bronaugh), Olsen broadens her sonic mind, steering her disarmingly raw, introspective close-ups of unsettled emotions into new territory without abandoning the casual intimacy she has been cultivating all along. This three-person band, led by Olsen, creates a warm record that should be absorbed over time rather than judged immediately. Some of her lyrics stick with the listener and create an image that just can not be shaken. The ballad “Windows” builds up to the line, “Won’t you open a window some time? What’s so wrong with the light?” Her voice here is excellent and with lyrics that enable the listener to decipher a unique meaning, she really creates a captivating song. On some songs it seems like Olsen is directly talking to the listener. Her voice comes through strongly, with a wisdom and soul that strike a lot more powerfully than most indie songstresses in today’s era.
“Wild Fire” is a standout on the album and perhaps the best song. “If you’ve still got some light in you then go before it’s gone,” she sings near the end of the almost seven-minute song, building to “Burn your fire for no witness/ It’s the only way it’s done.” The imagery is both intense and yet impossible to slow, and Olsen’s voice, an instrument that seems to grow more powerful the more time you spend with it, slips back and forth between the reverberations of youth and the power of broken love. Olsen, in a conversation with Billboard Magazine on Feb. 13, described the song as “One of the last things I had written and wasn’t meant to be shared, but I ended up taking the album title from it. A lot of the songs on the album are about knowing the self outside of everything else and I think of White Fire as being from the perspective of this character who has grown old and is going back to the beginning of who they were.” This makes a lot of sense when listening to the song in conjuction with the album. Olsen’s storytelling is unique and her lyrics really feel like they are coming directly from her heart.
Olsen has created the best record of her life with “Burn Your Fire For No Witness.” It is a constantly moving record that deserves to be heard countless times. This is a great step in the right direction for the 26-year-old alt-folk songstress. She really showcases her voice and magnetism throughout. Previously she could have been dismissed as a Cat Power ripoff, but Olsen has really come into her own and it will be exciting to see how she parlays her success.
