Maybe I’m imagining things, but I feel there is a level of clarity and strength in Sharon Van Etten’s voice on here new singles “Taking Chances” and now on “Every Time The Sun Comes Up” that I haven’t heard from her before. It could be the enhanced, unclouded production or just the fact that Van Etten has grown as a vocalist since her wonderful last album Tramp, but witch ever way, I find a lot of pleasure in these – relatively speaking – less pastoral new songs. On “Every Time The Sun Comes” she continues to shy away from the fleshier, riffier tracks of Tramp, yet compared to the r&B iched “Taking Chances”, the trackseems stylistically closer to the softer, more emotive side of her previous albums.
“Every Time The Sun Comes Up” is – especially during the second verse – full of wonderfully funny and badass lines like; “People say I’m a one hit wonder / but what happens when I have two” and “I washed your dishes / but I shit in your bathroom”. This is Van Etten throwing curveballs at us and constantly revealing new sides to her already nimble craft. Her new album is titled Are We There and is out May 27 via Jagjaguwar.
