“Burn Your Fire For No Witness”, Angel Olsen’s new album, isn’t an experimental piece of work by anyone’s standards, but it represents a vast step forward for Olsen. Musically, she’s changed everything, combining her ghostly folk with some beautifully executed ’90s-style indie fuzz. But the real great thing about the new album is this: Olsen suddenly sounds like a real person.
Angel Olsen is singing about the same things on the “Burn Your Fire” as she was on “Half Way Home”: Loneliness and longing, and the way you look at the world when you’re always trapped inside your own head. But there’s also giddy elation there from time to time, and deep connection. The first words she sings on opener “Unfucktheworld” are these: “I quit my dreaming the moment that I found you / I started dancing just to be around you.” And even though it’s not a happy song — it’s about losing all that happiness, not finding it — there’s a conversational directness to it that I didn’t hear on her older songs.
The Fat Angel Sings 