Angel Olsen: Big Time review – sumptuous folk-rock balm

The sound of Angel Olsen’s albums might swing from uncooked to symphonic and again, however there are all the time open wounds in her music that no quantity of polished manufacturing can cauterise. The Missouri singer-songwriter has misplaced each her mother and father and are available out as queer since we final heard her on 2020’s Complete New Mess, and her elegant response at this level on the pendulum swing is a luxuriant sprawl of orchestral folks rock. These songs show the reality of Philip Larkin’s line “What's going to survive of us is love”, and it’s telling that the title monitor is a love tune quite than one of many extra fretful tracks that flit by means of the album.

Essentially the most valuable moments are the quieter ones – the hushed, quivering fantastic thing about All of the Flowers, or Proper Now’s light crescendo into steely resolve. At occasions, Olsen edges too near the billowing chiffon-and-ersatz emotion of energy balladry – Dream Factor is especially suspect – however sensational nearer Chasing the Solar greater than compensates. As a number of of her songs attest, music might be comfort in essentially the most troubled occasions, and Large Time is a silky balm.

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