It’s the strongest batch of new(ish) releases for a while – Let’s Eat Grandma’s quirky synth-pop is more streamlined and emotionally affecting than before. Angel Olsen’s previous record, All Mirrors was excellent, but her new one is even better. Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen steps out with his first solo album.
Let’s Eat Grandma
Two Ribbons
2022, 9/10
Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton met at the age of 4 in a Norwich classroom. Best friends since then, they made home spy movies together and dyed their clothes with beetroot, but also started a band. The name Let’s Eat Grandma is taken from a grammar joke (stripped of its comma, the phrase takes on a macabre meaning). The duo’s 2016 debut, I, Gemini, was extremely quirky, but by their third record they’ve dialled back the quirkiness in favour of more emotional connection.
The band’s recent experiences have fed into the music – Hollingworth lost her boyfriend to cancer in early 2019, and songs like ‘Watching You Go’ grapple with this loss. Let’s Eat Grandma went on hiatus as Hollingworth dealt with her grief, and the pair had to relearn how to communicate with each other. Walton and Hollingworth previously wrote in tandem, but they wrote this batch of songs separately – almost like a dialogue to renew their closeness.
‘Happy New Year’ is about Walton and Hollingworth’s friendship and it’s the perfect choice as album opener, with a great synth hook. The pair’s melodic sense is impressive on tunes like ‘Sunday’, with its delicate arrangement. ‘Watching You Go’ is poignant, juxtaposing upbeat music with lines like “just like a dream I had which slowly comes unstuck”. The pairs’ unpolished vocals are full of personality, but they’re still musically adept – Hollingworth adds a saxophone solo to Walton’s Hall of Mirrors.
What started as a fun childhood project has evolved into a standout album, Two Ribbons.
Angel Olsen
Big Time
2022, 9/10
St. Louis’ Angel Olsen is on a terrific streak right now – Big Time is her third great album in a row, each one improving upon the last. 2019’s excellent All Mirrors featured sweeping orchestration, while Big Time adds more country flavours than before. It’s timeless with its stately country textures and sweeping strings. Olsen’s voice is given space to breathe – its vibrato-laden, like a throwback to the era of Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison. Big Time captures an emotionally fraught time in Olsen’s life – her father died three days after she came out to him, while her mother has also since passed away.
Olsen embraces country on the opening pair of tracks ‘All The Good Times’ and ‘Big Time’. The strings take over on the later tracks – Olsen uses her higher range on the woozily psychedelic ‘Through The Fires’. The emotional climax of ‘Right Now’ is one of the record’s most memorable moments.
Angel Olsen keeps improving with each release, but it’s tough to see how she could top Big Time.
Daniel Rossen
You Belong There
2022, 7.5/10
Like Let’s Eat Grandma, Daniel Rossen started making music as a lark with a friend. Rossen formed Department of Eagles with his roommate Fred Nicolaus, making lo-fi music built around samples. Rossen, grandson of All the Kings Men director Robert Rossen, then roomed with Chris Taylor, bassist for the Brooklyn indie band Grizzly Bear. This led to Rossen joining Grizzly Bear as their second lead vocalist in time for their sophomore album Yellow House.
Grizzly Bear announced a hiatus in 2020, with founder Ed Droste leaving to study therapy. On You Belong There, Rossen is joined by Grizzly Bear drummer Chris Bear. Rossen’s music is complex and idiosyncratic – there’s the vibe of a dusty old freak-folk record, while Rossen’s thin voice also recalls Robert Wyatt.
There’s a lot to take in on You Belong There – it’s ornate, not far from progressive rock despite the acoustic textures and short running times. Rossen’s guitar picking is sophisticated, and he’s supported by creative orchestral arrangements. Opener ‘It’s A Passage’ serves as a prelude with its orchestration, leading into ‘Shadow in the Frame’. Bear’s drumming is creative and propulsive when it’s featured on tracks like ‘Unpeopled Space’ and ‘Tangle’.
There’s a lot to take in on You Belong There – it’s a dense, fascinating album.
Read More
13 Comments
Leave a Reply
About
Aphoristic Album Reviews is almost entirely written by one person. It features album reviews and blog posts across a growing spectrum of popular music.
Aphoristical
View Profile
Graham Fyfe has been writing this website since his late teens. Now in his forties, he's been obsessively listening to albums for years. He works as a web editor and plays the piano.
Related Posts:
Review Pages
Read about the discographies of musical acts from the 1960s to the present day. Browse this site's review archives or enjoy these random selections:
Blog Posts
I add new blog posts to this website every week. Browse the archives or enjoy these random selections:
I had to listen to Just Eat Grandma just because of the name. Decent song though.
I’ve actually seen a couple of bloggers recently mock them for their name – I think they’ve (deservedly) been popping up on a bunch of best albums of the first half of 2022 lists, especially in the UK.
I could never get into Grizzly Bear so didn’t even think of checking out the Rossen record. The other two are pretty great though.
I would have assumed you’d be a Grizzly Bear fan and find Let’s Eat Grandma a bit frivolous! I think there’s something substantial with Grizzly Bear and Rossen, but I haven’t totally got there yet.
Yeah, I tried with Grizzly Bear back in the day and it never clicked with me. Maybe if I listened now?
I still haven’t really cracked them either, but maybe some day.
My initial favorite here is Angel Olsen – perhaps not very surprising, since I believe it’s fair to say I’m generally receptive to singer-songwriter-type artists.
“Shadow in the Frame” got my immediate attention because of the acoustic guitar action, especially Rossen’s Spanish guitar playing, which is definitely neat.
Let’s Eat Grandma “too synth pop” to me, but they undoubtedly have a memorable name!
Thanks for listening!
I don’t think Olsen is the most melodically exciting writer, but she’s got a great voice.
I was not familiar with Let’s Eat Grandma, but being a lover of synth-pop, I really like “Happy New Year”. It prompted me to listen to more of their album, and I’m liking their sound. Am not a big fan of Country, though I do like some of the female artists like Brandi Carlile, Kacey Musgraves and Angel Olsen, on the strength of their superb vocals and songwriting. “All The Good Times” is wonderful. And Daniel Rossen’s song that you shared is intriguing and beautiful, with enchanting guitar work.
Thanks for listening. I guess I probably should have differentiated between country and Americana in my post, come to think of it . Olsen fits into that Americana tradition really, as do the other artists you named.
Let’s Eat Grandma and Angel Olsen both have a pretty good chance of making my top ten albums for 2022.
Angel Olsen… great voice and you said what I would have said…space to breathe. It’s straightforward…love the buildup toward the end and the instruments.
Yup, it’s nicely produced and sung. Sometime I should make a list like “10 21st Century Artists Whom Boomers Should Enjoy” (not saying you’re a boomer).
Yea that would narrow it down. No I was born a little too late to be a boomer…but as you know…that is the music I like.