Sharon Van Etten Unlocks a New Level Of Creativity With The Attachment Theory
The singer looks for solid ground in a shaky world on her first LP made fully in tandem with her band, resulting in a moody new strain of synth-pop.
Rage is powerful, but it can be easily misdirected. When we see a hateful take on social media, our heart rates climb and our heads go haywire as we try to contemplate how a fellow human could really believe something so stupid and cruel. We start writing replies in our heads, or maybe we actually type one out and hit send. We’re mad.
One song on Sharon Van Etten’s new album with her band, the Attachment Theory, places us right inside that heated moment. “My hands are shaking as a mother / trying to raise her son right,” Van Etten sings on “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like).” But instead of relying only on rage, she lends some kindness. She wonders “what it must be like” to walk a different path, and she hurls that anger not at her neighbor, but at the lies they’re being sold.
Is compassion more powerful than rage? How do we keep walking this withering earth like it’s all OK when everything seems so wrong? How do we define truth? The questions of today far outweigh the answers. And like all the most effective art, The Attachment Theory, Van Etten’s latest album and first created in full collaboration with her bandmates, asks the most complicated, sometimes unanswerable ones.
But these questions are always useful. On “Something Ain’t Right,” some big ones hit the table: “Do you believe in compassion for enemies? … Who is to blame when it falls to decay? … What do you want for your loved ones?” In seeking these answers, Van Etten isn’t asking “How did we get here?” The Attachment Theory is a state of the union. It declares, “Here’s where I am. Where do I go?”
While the material is forward-looking, there would be no Attachment Theory without Van Etten’s last two records: 2019’s Remind Me Tomorrow and 2022’s We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong. The former was the first in an experimental streak. On that record, Van Etten outed herself as a true gearhead, layering her intimate writing style against the backdrop of howling synths and crashing drum machines. And six years later, much of the album sounds nothing short of unearthly. Power ballad “Seventeen” still screams out as one of the greatest songs of the 2010s, but deeper cuts like “Jupiter 4” (named for the analog Roland synth Van Etten used on the album) have an otherworldly posture. The synths sound less like instruments and more like loose souls careening through space.
On The Attachment Theory, hints of where Van Etten was going on Remind Me peek through. But the overall result is something warmer. She leans into her loudest instincts. Every song reaches for new heights, but each is tethered to the solid kind of foundation that only a songsmith as talented as Van Etten could build. Sometimes the notes form something like early dream pop (“Fading Beauty”), while other tracks inoculate modern shoegaze with industrial downtown rock ‘n’ roll (“Southern Life”) and others still lean into Breeders-like alternative rock (“Indio,” “Idiot Box” and “Somethin’ Ain’t Right”).
Van Etten and her band achieve the ideal equilibrium of rock and pop influence on The Attachment Theory, while still sounding completely Van Ettenian in every note. “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)” is like if Tom Tom Club had produced “Murder on the Dancefloor.” And the mesmerizing “Live Forever”—which sparks like the Stranger Things theme, in the best way—is Soft Cell meets the Cocteau Twins. This delightful range is no doubt owed in part to producer Marta Salogni, who has worked previously with some of music’s best mood-makers like Bjork and Bon Iver.
But one track feels more immediate than the others, and that’s “Afterlife,” which Van Etten wrote after a fan-turned-friend passed away. In an interview with The Guardian, Van Etten said this fan “had a profound effect” on her, and that’s evident in the melody. Over glittering electronica and a pulsing bass, Van Etten takes the questions about death that feel terrifying alone late at night (“Will you see me in the afterlife? …Does it feel like coming home?”) and turns them into an assured anthem.
Van Etten is still queen of the quiet hour, but there’s no question now that she’s also one of our foremost rockstars. The Attachment Theory has something to offer fans of both sides of the same coin: moody narratives and explosive melodies, all fortified by the magic that came with sharing the art-making experience with her band members. On this record, collaboration plays a key role in balancing competing emotions and synthscapes. Heard all together, The Attachment Theory, in all its dark beauty and careful questioning, is a most suitable record for our times, and it’s one of the most immediate pieces of art Van Etten has ever signed her name to.
Ellen Johnson is a former Paste music editor and forever pop culture enthusiast. Presently, she’s a full-time editor and part-time writer. You can find her in Atlanta, or rewatching Little Women on Letterboxd.