Manafonistas

Everybody’s darling in the reviews. Her new record is highly recommended, but not from my side. Her intimate approach, her searching qualities, her handsomely-orchestrated confessionals! “I am a sinner, I have sinned”, Sharon Van Etten sings, drawing the phrase out for as long as possible: she likes repetitions, she even seems to like her own vulnerability. Are we not all (oh, so) vulnerable? The New York singer-songwriter, an indie favourite following 2012’s breakthrough album Tramp, specialises in emotional rawness that seems a little bit too polished in its unpolished way. The tone is unvarying, the small sorrow endless, the moments of luck a song-long exercise in relief, but, anyway, this record nearly bores me to death.