Angel Olsen - All Mirrors review: Spellbinding symphonies prove bigger is better

Symphonic: Angel Olsen
Harry Fletcher4 October 2019

As the scything guitars, crashing drums and 14-piece orchestra coalesce on the bold opening track, Lark, it’s immediately clear that bigger often equals better on Angel Olsen’s lush fourth album, All Mirrors.

The Missouri singer-songwriter has carved out an interesting niche with her brand of introspective indie rock, ever since first making an impact with the waif-like If It’s Alive, It Will in 2010. Her output has often been small-scale and lo-fi in design, but when things take a turn for the symphonic the results are simply spellbinding.

Lark — stretching over six minutes — is painful, profound and hopeful, with distorted guitars rubbing like sandpaper against smooth, emollient string textures. It’s grander in scale than anything Olsen has done before, and feels like a rebirth of sorts. “If only we could start again, pretending that we don’t know each other,” she emotes.

And while the rest of the album never quite matches Lark’s heights, it’s still a record that successfully plays with form, style and scale. The title track is buff, with brooding Goth synths, and the sweeping strings on tender ballad Tonight are beautifully done. Jherek Bischoff’s arrangements also help tracks such as Impasse build from sparse, spectral openings to cacophonous orchestral swells. Angel’s vocals, though, are what propel the album’s dynamics, ranging from a low, Lana Del Rey-esque drawl to a piercing and emotive scream.

It might be missing a killer single or two but All Mirrors is expressive and expansive throughout — Olsen’s horizons have never been more boundless.

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