Sometimes life is so bittersweet and weird that you can hardly tell whether the timing was actually luck in bad luck or bad luck in luck. Even as one of the reigning best singer/songwriters in the world, you are not immune to this: Angel Olsen, 35, had her lesbian coming-out in front of her parents in 2021 and, as she says herself, felt helpless like a five-year-old child again. Her father died just a few days later. Angel Olsen brings her partner (screenwriter Adele Thibodeaux) to the funeral, and two weeks later her mother also dies.
This mixture of oppressive sadness and liberating having said it, standing by himself and his girlfriend also characterizes Angel Olsen’s sixth studio album, on which she dedicates herself, more than ever, to Americana with pedal steel and twang and vocally (like Lana Del Rey, by the way) based on the country singer Tammy Wynette. In view of the emo roller coaster, BIG TIME is a surprisingly calm, elegant album, opening with shimmering organs, flanked again and again by brass and with lovely details like triangles.
This doesn’t quite match the opulent orchestral pomp of ALL MIRRORS (2019), but there are small rock freaks (“Go Home”) and in the finale there is also a string cinematic piano ballad (“Chasing The Sun”), in which Angel Olsen’s Longing angel voice brilliantly full of nuances. All in all, it’s a nice thing that Angel Olsen (like Orville Peck just now) is working on the queering of the still very conservative country genre.
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