Album Review: Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow

Helping get 2019 off to a great start, Sharon Van Etten drops her first album since 2014. Van Etten hasn’t exactly been slacking off since then, returning to university to study psychology and scoring the film Strange Weather.

This album marks something of a change of direction for Van Etten. It is synth heavy and features piano and organ rather than guitar. The haunting meditative moods of previous albums evaporate in an attempt to be a little more uplifting. At least it seems that producer John Congleton tries to get it sounding a little more uplifting while Van Etten clearly delights in moody contemplative moments. I Told You Everything gets the album started with austere piano chords and break-up vibes. The beats propel No One’s Easy To Love and Comeback Kid but the reverb-drenched synths are woozy and tend to drone with a menacing touch.

Lyrically this album dwells on much-loved memories and their impacts on the present. There is a palpable sense of travelling through time and space when Van Etten sings of driving around Malibu in a little red car, contemplating long-gone good times. Similarly, Jupiter 4 lovingly looks back on the ghosts of the past. Seventeen is the kind of intergenerational face-off that speaks to the turf war of gentrification that is being played out in urban environments around the world.

Remind Me Tomorrow testifies Van Etten’s evolution as a musician as she contemplates life and love and the accompanying kaleidoscope of emotions.