Angel Olsen - My Woman: Oddly, intoxicatingly spellbinding

She started out as a folk artist, but her breakthrough came with 2014’s lo-fi, alt-rock-tinged Burn Your Fire for No Witness.

Angel Olsen’s third album changes tack yet again, gathering in sounds from 1960s girl groups (Give It Up), 1970s folk-rock (the Fleetwood Mac-esque Sister) and contemporary alt-rock, that tackles “the complicated mess of being a woman”.

With a full band behind her, the US musician's vision is realised in a superbly ramshackle manner, with the jangly shimmer of Never Be Mine touching on Roy Orbison, liberal dashes of PJ Harvey's wild quiver and the odd guitar solo that Wilco's Nels Cline would approve of, while traces of Olsen's oddness remain on the coquettish Blue Velvet throb of Heart Shaped Face. Oddly, intoxicatingly spellbinding.

[ angelolsen.com ]