Angel Olsen played The Sinclair – 9/20

Touring in support of her stellar new LP My Woman, celebrated North Carolina singer/songwriter Angel Olsen and her band sold out two nights at Cambridge’s Sinclair earlier this week. 

2016 will surely be remembered as a breakthrough year for Olsen. The dedicated fanbase she’s been building over the course of the past six years and two LPs has exploded with the release of My Woman, which is widely and being hailed as one of the year’s finest rock records. I first saw Olsen perform as a sparsely accompanied opener for Kurt Vile at The Sinclair in 2013; three years later and she had no trouble selling out the room weeks in advance, twice.

My Woman is a stirring, thoughtful, lyrical record that deftly balances its rockers and slow-burners. It’s the strongest of Olsen’s three full-lengths and deserving of its enormous hype. At Tuesday’s show, Olsen reinforced the strengths of the album with an assured set touching on all but one of its songs. None of the subtleties of the new material were lost in translation with the help of a five-piece band, but the group also exercised artful restraint, and the arrangements didn’t feel overstuffed. A 90-minute set found time for a handful of older tunes, but the evening was meant to highlight the new songs and did so beautifully.

Even amid a crowded stage, Olsen and her striking, singular voice remained the focal point of each song. Her performances share the sort of timeless quality that distinguishes her songwriting, and she’s a mesmerizing presence on stage. She can also be disarmingly funny though, which was evident a number of times during Tuesday’s show with asides about Uber drivers and a guest appearance during opener Alex Cameron’s set. By the end of the night’s encore (a haunting “Intern” and the new record’s sprawling sort-of title track), there was no question that Olsen was ready for the spotlight that 2016 has brought her. This was a confident step right into it.

Cameron’s opening set was a fun introduction to the evening, with the Australian musician sporting a shimmering suit and crooning darkly humorous lyrics over synth-y backing tracks. There were shades of Jarvis Cocker circa Different Class in his words and delivery, and his banter with saxophone player and “business partner” Roy Molloy was frequently as entertaining as the songs themselves. I didn’t expect to hear a lengthy story involving Crispin Glover, a rented basement and an impounded Cadillac from that stage Tuesday night, but as it turned out I was happy to.

Check out photos from both sets below.