This year I'm trying hard to listen to new music and to focus on new album releases.
Earlier this month, Sharon Van Etten released a new album called Remind Me Tomorrow. The new single is featured on this week's Strange Sound Spotify Playlist.
The album is excelent. I was not very familiar with Etten's back catalogue, only the most streamed songs, but this album looks like an improvement. A more mature album and a step forward.
The album has a big variety of sounds, form melancholic ballads to electronic pop songs until indie rock hits.
Remind Me Tomorrow starts with a sad and slow ballad that serves as an introduction. Then, two kind of dark introspective songs, with "Memorial Day" sounding like a long moan with the words "YouWill Run" winding through the instrumental.
Then, you go directly to the 3 singles chosen by Sharon to present the album. "Comeback Kid" is a fast, a bit catchy and a hard song. "Jupiter 4" is a spacey, electronic and emotional trip.
"Seventeen" is one of those song that you love it or you hate it. I love it. It's the most happy song on the album, an obvious single and hit. Very catchy, very radio-friendly, kinda sound like a hymn, a perfect song to celebrate love and the process of ageing happily. It's a lesson about how to make a good modern indie pop song. Perfect.
After the 3 single we enter again a darker territory. "Malibu" is a beautiful ballad, reminding something like Beach House with a fantastic dramatic synthesizer solo. "You Shadow" is OK, doesn't really stand out from the other songs. "Hands" is a very obscure song, one of those songs to leave to the end of the album, it marks, even if the production here is a bit distorted during the chorus, that doesn't really helps.
The last song "Stay" comes like a fresh air (specially after Hands) and it is a very chilling moment.
As a overall, the album is great. I could define it as a very good current indie record, sang by a beautiful voice. It shows that actually, today Women are really on the vanguard of indie music.
In 10 songs, it has everything: hits, melancholic ballads, chill tunes, electronic sounds, hard dark melodies. As I said on the beginning, inside one gender of music, it is a very diversified album.
It's the best album I heard this year. Sorry James Blake and Deerhunter, but Sharon wins.
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