Sharon Van Etten: Epic

Label: Ba Da Bing!

Sharon Van Etten's second full-length effort will be (is!) one of the best records to come out of NYC this year, no lie. The title is meant to be seen in lowercase, a softly ironic statement from a humbly galvanizing singer and songwriter. (To tag her as "singer-songwriter" seems to somehow lessen her power.) After a debut, Because I Was in Love, on which Van Etten was accompanied mainly by just her guitar, the Brooklynite (by way of Jers) brings on a backing band for Epic, and the results are nothing less than flabbergasting. After the opening "A Crime" -- just her and a full-bodied strum, with the crushing refrain, "Never let myself love like that again" -- comes the devastating "Peace Signs," a kick-drum thump building a tension sent into the stratosphere by Van Etten's cryptic yet paralyzing lyrics and voice: "I still dream that I think of you / In the calm of the night and I don't know what to do / Peace sigh-igh-igh-igns!" That's just the first two songs! The remaining five -- this is a short yet full-length album -- are comparably rewarding, alternately punishing and renewing (especially "One Day," a lovely, lilting waltz) and more genuinely epic than anything you've ever called "epic." (M.L. Thrope)