Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow

Bandcamp Daily

“Remind Me Tomorrow” is a great leap into new territory for Van Etten stylistically, but there isn’t a single moment of distrust in her abilities as a songwriter to be found—nor is there any mistaking her trademark voice.

Pitchfork 84

On her fifth album, Sharon Van Etten conjures tempests and explores their subsequent calms. It is the peak of her songwriting and her most atmospheric, emotionally piercing album to date.

The Guardian 80

(Jagjaguwar)

Like all of Sharon Van Etten’s previous albums, 2014’s Are We There was preoccupied by a prior toxic relationship – co-dependency couched in a sour combination of abuse and affection. Its follow-up opens with a track that references that period of disquieting soul-baring in the form of a meta-confessional: I Told You Everything has Van Etten divulging the details of her traumatic past to a sympathetic new partner, but not the listener. It’s a move that acknowledges the musician’s suffering but also inches the story forward, hinting that the New Jersey native has a different life now (a suggestion confirmed by her hectic-sounding recent biography: over the past four years she has had a child, taken up acting and started studying for a degree in counselling). Change is something echoed in the sound of Remind Me Tomorrow too, a collection that sees Van Etten edge away from her trademark guitar and towards drones, piano and vintage synths.

Related: Sharon Van Etten: ‘The more I let go, the more I progress as a human being’

The Guardian 80

(Jagjaguwar)

Since her last album – 2014’s Are We There – Sharon Van Etten has dropped off music’s radar. She studied counselling, prompted by fans who have turned to this intense singer-songwriter in distress. Van Etten also became a successful actor, in the Netflix drama The OA. She had a son. Her latest album rings these changes, mostly in the album’s textures. Piano, the Jupiter 4 synthesiser and some elegant, spacious production courtesy of John Congleton replace Van Etten’s previous surging indie rock guitars.

And yet Van Etten remains resolutely herself: possessed of a slow-burning seethe that builds to swirling crescendos, she is a consummate surgeon of relationships, keen on Bruce Springsteen. Named after the option to postpone a computer update, the album starts with the drama of a short story.

Drowned In Sound 70

Remind Me Tomorrow is not a weary record, just one that calmly accepts the impossibility of doing everything, all the time. It’s noticeably less focused on heartbreak than previous works, tellingly opening with the line “Sitting at the bar I told you everything / You Said, ‘Holy Shit, You Almost Died’”, as if to warn listeners that they shouldn’t expect another album thematically dominated by lovelorn regret. The new, synth dominated sound that prevails throughout most of the album is equally powerful in this respect. Propulsive lead single ‘Comeback Kid’ is the sound of the fragile guitar-led arrangements that took centre stage in Van Etten’s early work being drowned out by a house party down the road.

Despite these changes there is still plenty of intimacy here. Remind Me Tomorrow grants access both to Van Etten’s joy at her newfound domestic bliss and to the new, more peaceful self-reflection that now provides the fulcrum of her songwriting approach. The soaring ‘Seventeen’, the record’s most immediate standout track, features Van Etten musing on adolescent uncertainty from the vantage point of stability. The droning ‘Jupiter 4’ contains an earnest, but heartfelt, declaration of what separates her situation today from that of her past: “Baby, baby, baby, I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting my whole life for someone like you”. In another pleasing wink-and-nudge moment the track is named after the synthesizer, borrowed from actor Michael Cera, that has provided much of the album’s sonic character.

The sense is that Van Etten has been waiting not just for the “for real” love of her current relationship, but also for the opportunity to release an album this spacious. During its peaks – the glorious trip hop influenced pair of ‘Memorial Day’ and closer ‘Stay’ deserve mentions here – Remind Me Tomorrow gives the impression its creator has all the time in the world. To call the album ‘relaxed’ would be misleading (it’s still too lyrically direct for that), but it meanders along contentedly rather than throwing one heavy emotional punch after another. This does cause the odd problem. The trio of ‘Nobody’s Easy to Love’, ‘You Shadow’ and ‘Hands’ feel rather underdone and the jaunty ‘Malibu’ gets a little lost coming directly after the particularly compelling central duo of ‘Jupiter 4’ and ‘Seventeen’.

How far the record succeeds is probably down to whether individual listeners valued Van Etten’s previous records for their honesty or, not unreasonably, as reservoirs of emotional support. Remind Me Tomorrow isn’t as consistently captivating as Tramp or Are We There, but it’s nonetheless a delightful return, one that gives us a new (pleasingly less traumatic) window into Van Etten’s world.