Sharon Van Etten 'Tramp'

The transition from intimate confessionalist to something more expansive, more accessible, more stage-friendly can be difficult, charmless, thankless work. Often, it can be a mistaken evolution; or, at least, an unfortunate one, with the things that captured early listeners forsaken in pursuit of a bigger audience. Brooklyn singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has been undergoing such a change. Since being introduced with 2009's spartan, sad-hearted Because I Was In Love, Van Etten has been inching towards something bigger. First came 2010's Epic, an LP whose title was only semi-ironic. Now comes Tramp.

Tramp takes its title from a peripatetic time in Van Etten's life, where the songwriter —who'd previously been a publicist for New York's Ba-Da-Bing! Records— was thrown into the life of the wandering minstrel; giving up her apartment and courting homelessness, with months upon months spent out on the road. There, she'd play her first outdoor-rock-festival stages, open for Neko Case, The National, and The Antlers, make a fan of Bon Iver. Van Etten would take command of a backing band, try to overcome her doubts, and make sense of how her music —so raw, so personal, so quiet— could become something bigger, broader, bolder.

The album was made throughout that time; Van Etten beginning work with National guitarist Aaron Dessner before Epic had even been released. The result is something fleshed-out, grander-sounding, more stacked with helping hands. The credits read like the Brooklyn All-Stars: Julianna Barwick, Beirut's Zach Condon (for whom Van Etten once did PR), The Walkmen's Matt Barrick, Doveman's Thomas Bartlett, and Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner all helping the Dessner brothers make an album that is bigger, broader, bolder.

First single "Serpents" was sent out to signpost that change, blazing a new trail that Tramp, as a whole, only partway picks up on. By that I mean: "Serpents" —a snarling, pissed-off rocker— is by far the loudest, most uptempo, most aggressive song on the LP. It served a warning that Van Etten was no doe-eyed singer-songwriter, that her latest record could rock enough for fans of The National's brotastic angst. But it was, in comparison to the rest of the record, a little bit of a ruse; there's still plenty of mournful, melancholy material herein.

For those who've taken Van Etten's lyrics to heart thus far, "Serpents" is a notable marker of change (and not just because she wails "everything changes!" therein). It picks up on a subject familiar from the first two records —Van Etten's time in an abusive relationship in Tennessee— but, instead of being written when trapped within it, comes from a perspective of hindsight; a final sign-off from someone who, years on, sounds pissed off at things that happened ("You enjoy sucking on dreams," Van Etten barks, like an assault; "I had a thought you would take me seriously/listen up!").

From there, the relationship that defined Van Etten's early work —and gave Because I Was In Love its explanatory title— is dead and gone, no longer a uniting theme. If Tramp offers one —and its lyrics are open-ended enough to not— then it's the songwriter measuring their existence through their songs.

"It's bad to believe in any song you sing," Van Etten sings, in "I'm Wrong," whose dramatic slow-build is tangled up in domesticity, devotion, and an inability to communicate away from the guitar. "Stay home at night and read a book and finish songs that I hum along to all the time with you," Van Etten sings, over the droning woodwinds and string, "but I don't have words to say."

It's the most stirring example, but little lines add up. "The eyes in the back of the room" speak of a life on stage; "Leonard" a brassy self-critique ("I am bad at loving you") whose title is more homage to Leonard Cohen than ode to beau; "Magic Chords" casting a minor-key spell in its embrace of facing up to (on stage?) failure. All this suggests a growing level of accomplishment for Van Etten, as artist, yet a growing self-awarness —if not self-consciousness— that was completely absent on her prior works.

Record Label: Jagjaguwar
Release Date: February 7, 2012