2014 has been a superbly good year for Angel Olsen, with her second studio album “Burn Your Fire For No Witness” hitting a career high to date for the Missouri-born singer/songwriter. The stark “Iota” forms one of the more brutal lyrical assaults on Olsen‘s amazing album, lamenting the dark inevitability of life against the impossibilities that might just make it bearable: “If only we could turn ourselves around / And all the things we’re looking for were found / If only we grew wiser with each breath / If only we could dance our way to death”. The album– “Burn Your Fire For No Witness” which was so much different than the earlier Angel Olsen’s 2012 lp “Half Way Home” was a quiet, plaintive affair — a low-key country waltz with minimal, yet affecting instrumentation. Conversely, Burn Your Fire found her plugging in and turning up the faders. An album of closeness and distance, heartache and heartbreak. Olsen navigates these ups and downs with her voice as captain. It’s a mesmerizing instrument, sweet, tranquil then suddenly intense in an ascendant vibrato
The Fat Angel Sings 