ANGEL OLSEN Fri 2/17 Crystal Ballroom
ANGEL OLSEN Fri 2/17 Crystal Ballroom amanda marsallis

On the track “High & Wild” from her 2014 album Burn Your Fire for No Witness, Angel Olsen sings, “I’m neither innocent or wise when you look me in the eyes/You might as well be blind/You might as well be blind/’Cause you don’t see me anymore.” Throughout her catalog, Olsen embodies this lyric; she’s intentionally difficult to nail down, and defies easy categorization.

Listening to the echoing folk of her 2011 LP debut, Strange Cacti, feels voyeuristic, like hearing your neighbor sing an entire opera in their shower. 2012’s Half Way Home sounds like the neighbor realized you’d been eavesdropping, with these wild but secret aquatic arias reforming as sparse acoustic numbers. 2014’s Burn Your Fire for No Witness plugs in for blowout guitar-rock that’s bruised but biting with lyrics like “Will you ever forgive me/A thousand times through/For loving you?”

2016’s My Woman is full of anti-love songs, and finds Olsen soaking in the spotlight of pristine production without ever letting you close enough to truly know her: “Intern” opens the record with spacy synth-pop, but the twangy “Shut Up Kiss Me” centers on Olsen’s guttural Roy Orbison-inspired crooning, with guitar riffs that rush into the chorus like a nosebleed. The album’s second half is entirely different, and sprawls into the white-light horizon of seven-minute ballads.

On My Woman, Olsen doesn’t linger on any one genre or subject long enough for you to make any assumptions about her. Anything that seems certain—other than her stunning capacity as an artist—is just a trick of light.