Staff Reviews

Sharon van Etten - I Don't Want to Let You Down

Review by Joe Goggins

Serves only to fuel the anticipation that Are We There rightly stoked.»

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Sharon Van Etten has never needed much room to make a grand statement. With four albums diligently released during the last six years, she's become one of music's most astute new cartographers of the heart, able to capture emotional trials and triumphs with incisive lines and a voice that loses nothing in the translation and transmission of feelings. Her second record, 'Epic', needed only seven tracks to live up to its title. Her subsequent albums, 2012's 'Tramp' and last year's 'Are We There', went longer, but Van Etten managed still to squeeze enormous sentiments into especially small spaces. From start to rising stardom, Van Etten has forever understood the impact of economy. It should come as no surprise, then, that Van Etten's latest five-song EP, 'I Don't Want to Let You Down', functions as much more than some between-albums, on-tour stopgap. In only 22 minutes, Van Etten offers documents of surrender and disappointment, admission and longing. The songs are as sophisticated and evolved as anything Van Etten has ever done. Produced by Van Etten and Are We There producing partner Stewart Lerman, the EP features a sterling crew of collaborators: Heather Woods Broderick (keyboards, strings, vocals), Doug Keith (guitar), Zeke Hutchins (drums), Brad Cook (bass), Darren Jesse (drums), Peter Broderick (strings), Stuart Bogie (woodwinds), and The War On Drugs' Adam Granduciel (guitar) and Dave Hartley (bass).
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