Angel Olsen is back with some introspective howls in her new album, All Mirrors. It holds the heartbeat of a masterpiece and lets us in, as she lets go of a significant love interest to confront her spinning thoughts. Her voice rattles from cages away, mirroring some of the choices she had made in her earlier album, Burn Your Fire for No Witness.
The three songs, New Love Cassette, Spring and What it Is are my personal favorites and they transition into each other effortlessly. The lyrics, “It’s easy if you tell the truth/ but knowing what it is it’s not the same” are all encompassing. Angel Olsen is fully owning her feelings and admitting that we all have shit to weed through.
She is staring at herself, feeling an increase of resentment throughout the first half of the album. And then we reach the song, Tonight where Angel is able to sleep without the weight of another human shadow.
She is confronting herself slowly, passing through the vibrato of self-sabotage to land in a whisper of conviction. Her voice piles in heart break, spilling through a synth and some richly textured strings. It is an album that will most likely make you cry.
What a change of pace from her more pop-punk album, My Woman. She knows how to create some real, addictive magic! Angel is taking new risks to self reflect and I am in awe of her vulnerability.
Shifting from a time when our names meant more, each time that other people told us they did… from a time when we first touched love, only to be sucked away into a dark shell of mourning. All Mirrors will shatter your dreams and hug you simultaneously.