Angel Olsen originally planned to release two different takes on her fourth album, All Mirrors, simultaneously: a solo version and a full-band rendering of the songs. As Olsen details in a letter packaged with the All Mirrors promo, however, once she dived into work with collaborators—including frequent co-writer Ben Babbitt, who contributes string arrangements, piano, and various instruments, and orchestral conductor Jherek Bischoff, who also arranges on several songs—she felt drawn to releasing the fleshed-out version first.
It’s easy to hear why: Produced by John Congleton, All Mirrors is a big leap for Olsen beyond rough-hewn indie rock and haunting folk, a stark and attention-grabbing collection where dramatic string accents shroud monochrome post-punk synths and sparse rhythms. Accordingly, her vocals are also sleeker—velvety and throaty like a cabaret performer on some songs, art-pop glassy in other places—and exhibit a range of emotions: skeptical after some deep introspection, or weighed down by sadness. In Olsen’s catalog, the album already feels like an analog to Kate Bush’s The Dreaming, which is a challenging record known for its bold boundary-stretching.
All Mirrors starts off strong with the superlative “Lark.” The song begins with Olsen at the forefront, half-murmuring regrets about a past relationship as strings gather steam behind her. At the end of the first verse, her grief breaks and overflows, as she hollers the lyrics, “Hiding out inside my head it’s me again it’s no surprise I’m on my own now.” As “Lark” progresses, and Olsen unpacks more of her anger and anguish, the strings become more urgent and unsettled. Near the five-minute mark, she wails, “You say you love every single part,” before the strings immediately kick in like a torrential downpour, enveloping her as she exclaims, “What about my dreams? What about the heart?”
The song is even more stunning because it’s bolstered by incisive instrumentation that allows Olsen’s frustration to boil over in a natural, affecting way. Unfortunately, All Mirrors doesn’t maintain this subtlety, in large part because the high-alert string arrangements overpower the album’s dynamics and delicacy. The synth-cloaked “New Love Cassette” is dragged down by a plodding tempo that’s exacerbated by these heavy-handed accents, while the nuance of other songs is overshadowed.
In fact, it’s fatiguing to listen to All Mirrors straight through, which makes it easy to overlook the collection’s highlights: the oceanic torch song “Impasse,” with its gothic bass fuzz and buzzing-beehive strings; the St. Vincent-esque “What It Is” and its galloping, pizzicato string accents; or the jazz-kissed sprawl “Endgame.” Even songs without strings suffer by extension: The foggy ’70s-rock homage “Spring”—which boasts piano, Mellotron, and various guitars—is sunk by overly busy instrumentation, while the exquisite French-pop trifle “Too Easy” is plush but slight.
As usual, however, Olsen’s piercing lyrics go a long way to redeem shortcomings. All Mirrors often wrestles unsparingly at what could’ve been—“What It Is” comes to the realization that a relationship’s façade was deceiving, while “Spring” features the particularly brilliant lines, “Remember when we said we’d never have children / I’m holding your baby now that we’re older”—but is determined not to be burdened by the past. “Endgame” finds a protagonist finally having clear-eyed perspective on what sounds like a messy split, while “Chance” tries to live in the moment: “All that space in between where we stand could be our chance.” And, despite the thick and layered arrangements, Olsen’s emotional range always shines through. “At least at times it knew me,” she repeats on the title track, with varying shades of sadness and resignation.
Olsen has never shied away from meticulous musical tactics, especially in the studio. On her sparser records, that careful attention to detail pays dividends, as every single element—a turn of phrase, a spare arrangement, a well-placed crescendo—lands with devastating emotional precision. But applying a similarly fastidious approach to a dense collection such as All Mirrors has the opposite effect: The music is gorgeous but feels labored over, like pottery lacquered with one too many layers of shellac. Hopefully Olsen will also still release her stripped-back take on All Mirrors, as it’s the dressing—not the songs themselves—that stumbles.
43 Comments
Proposal: a supergroup formed of Angel Olsen and Ansel Elgort.Angel does the music and Ansel just dances.
No.
i’ll allow it
I would listen to that album.
Why?
Why not?
I didn’t know there was a stringsless version of the album theoretically out there, and I’m super excited for it whenever it comes. For me the big issue is Weyes Blood’s “Titanic Rising” also came out this year with basically the same instrumentation and knocked it out of the park. This album isn’t bad but it just doesn’t feel as distinctive as even Angel Olsen’s folky albums, so it suffers a lot in comparison to another songwriter doing something similar. But “Lark” is still stuck in my head, so your suggestion that the instrumentation also just makes the album hard to listen to straight through feels about right. Maybe this will become my favorite Angel Olsen in retrospect once I get to know the songs out of context or in a stripped down form.
It’s not the same instrumentation in any way. All Mirrors is the album of the year. Period.
There’s a lot of real big differences, especially the guitars on “All Mirrors” versus the pianos on “Titanic Rising”. And they’re becoming more distinct as I get to know “All Mirrors” better, but in general my impression is still that they have a very similar mood, feel, and use of strings/70’s rock influences. That’s not bad, since I like all those things, but it’s a bit of an uncanny feeling. For all I know, you might be right, though I’m generally not even in the ballpark of trying to judge an ‘album of the year’. Angel Olsen is one of my favorite artists but her songs tend to take a while to really burrow into me. I loved “My Woman” when it came out but it didn’t really become one of my favorite albums generally until I saw her live like a year later and felt the closing track crash around me like a tidal wave.So I’m fully okay with the idea that I might not fully appreciate this album for a while, because in general I do like music that rewards returning to it again and again over the years.
Heard Purple Mountains? I don’t see how anything can beat it.**My opinion
First song off the album was a 6+ minute slog. I tapped out a couple minutes in.
The few songs I have heard thus far, I’m having a difficult time getting into. I really enjoyed her other albums, so I’ll give it a full listen soon, but not really feelin’ it thus far.
Lark? A slog? That song is gigantic.
Yeah, haven’t listened to the album yet but I think that’s one of her best songs.
“Gorgeous but fatiguing?” Sounds like my wife! HEYO!
Aw, sad you. You are incorrect.
Aw, sad you. You can’t handle differing opinions without lashing out.
yeah but its just a dumb opinion “the first track was long so i stopped” ok then go listen to 3.5 minute pop songs and stop commenting about indie songwriter stuff man its like vampire weekend fans who have to show up to criticize metal vocalists for screaming
A song can be long and engaging, or long and boring. This one was long and boring.
seems like you should have went with that instead of “woah six minutes bro?”
I’m confused. Do you like the song or do you just want to tell me what I should have said?
i can tell you’re the type to be easily confused. you said that people were upset about a difference of opinion, i pointed out your dumb ass just said the song was too long which is just banal trolling
I said it was a slog. I see now that you are confused.
It must be exhausting, feeling so hurt every time someone doesn’t like the same thing you do.
i actually don’t care about angel olson but you are definitely a boring troll and surely have tedious taste
Whoa. I don’t care that much either! I enjoyed my weekend off from this. Shall we start again?
you don’t deserve anything good. never express your opinion again.
I love her first three albums, but My Woman just left me completely cold, and Lark really didn’t appeal to me as a single. It’s like she just reached a point where she made a conscious choice to stop making the types of songs I liked her for.
That is funny as this album is where she started making records and writing songs that we like. But these are not for you.
For some reason, the vocals really bother me on My Woman. It sounds like she’s off-key on several songs, and definitely not in an endearing way. Maybe it’s just me.
Indeed, it seems that some hope of crossover, alt-pop success has dragged her from the lovely place she began to this new, trying-so-hard, doing-so-much other place that seems to lack a solid foundation.
I’ll never understand why virtually all of my comments, no matter how uncontroversial or inoffensive, never make it through the Pending stage to the Big Time. What gives, really?
Because the writers don’t read the comments, and they are the only ones who can pull you out of the greys permanently. If a person out of the greys likes your comment it will be pulled from out of pending, though. But just that comment. Otherwise, you’re shit out of luck. It’s always been this way.
particularly brilliant lines, “Remember when we said we’d never have children / I’m holding your baby now that we’re older” This isn’t my scene at all, I’m just passing through but: how is this an example of “particularly brilliant” songwriting? This seems like a very flat statement, not an especially deep introspection or revelation.
Album of the year. I’ve been listening nonstop all week. Wasn’t a fan before but now obsessed. Your review is incorrect.
so its an angel olson record, i see, i see
This is my favorite album of 2019 and it’s not even close. I think these are some of the best songs she’s ever written. I love certain tracks on My Woman (“Intern” and “Sister” especially), but it always felt too long and I’ve never made it through the whole thing in one sitting.
I listened to this one 4 times in a row this morning without so much as a hint of fatigue. It already feels like one of those permanent records you can put on 5, 10, or 15 years from now and still find things to appreciate. I actually find Titanic Rising much more of a strain on the ears both sonically and in terms of the songwriting (she does way too many runs and I find it all kind of exhausting, but I still like it very much for the most part), which surprised me since Angel’s voice seems like it has more potential to grate.
Yeah, this is a gorgeous album. Has hints of Scott Walker, Roy Orbison, Spiritualized, and just a ton of other great influences that I can’t always place my finger on. “Chance” is probably SOTY.
This review is crap. The album is a masterpiece.
“the St. Vincent-esque “What It Is” and its galloping, pizzicato string accents”I definitely hear the St. Vincent vibes in that track. New Love Cassette also really sounds to me like it would have fit really well on her self-titled too.
I understand get the feeling that the album can be an exhausting listen because there really is so much going on in nearly every song, but I love it and I’m really just happy to have more Angel Olsen. It took me a while for her to click for me, but Burn Your Fire is an excellent album, as is My Woman which has a particularly special place in my heart. It’s too early to say where I’d place All Mirrors among those two, but I know it’s only going to get better with each listen.
I’m very interested in the stripped-down version of this album. I think the bones of the songs are all solid, there’s just too much shit going on and getting in the way. Big isn’t always better, sometimes it’s just distracting.
I think I agree that it is a lot. But I think it will eventually open into one of the best albums of the year (if not better than the odds-on favorite Weyes Blood). People said the same thing about M83 “Hurry Up We’re Dreaming” especially on this site: too much too long too hard to get into. I don’t know if it will reach those heights but it deserves more of a deconstruction and more than a B-whatevah
I’m going to listen with an open mind but the pseudo Lady Gaga trip (replete with goofy headdress-thing on Fallon) reeks of cashing in and trying to garner a “pop” audience. And in the words of 3rd Bass, pop goes the weasel and the weasel goes pop. Disappointed to see what I thought of as an actual musician and legitimate artist scrounging around with the ferrets and squirrels (at least superficially, although the sound of “Lark”— and the egregiously overwrought video; like, even Florence Welch had to roll her eyes at that one and go “Throttle it down a notch, girl”—has me seriously skeptical).