Sharon Van Etten‘s newest release in almost five years, Remind Me Tomorrow, dropped about two weeks ago, and has been in heavy, heavy rotation at Wow and Flutter ever since.  Van Etten had been on the edge of my radar about two years ago, until her appearance on Part 6 of Twin Peaks season 3 caused me to run out and get a copy of Are We There? so I could play “Tarifa” on repeat.  Which I did, but Tarifa isn’t even the best song on that album.  It’s a strong, polished effort but there’s an undertone of a much harder edge to come.

Remind Me Tomorrow is that harder, faster, and louder edge.  Sharon, working with producer John Congleton, brought in lots of synthesizers, which haven’t exactly been plentiful in her previous efforts.  But it works: it’s hard to imagine songs like “Seventeen” and “Comeback Kid” working as well as they do without all those synths dripping of those songs.  She’s successfully taken her already genuine, thoughtful songs and grafted, like, five rock bands on top of them.  Seriously: the single “Seventeen” is a legitimate cross between “Thunder Road” and Arcade Fire.  Try not pumping your fist.  It’s a great album.

And “Seventeen” was the emotional high point of her set at Royale tonight.  I’d been hoping to catch her for a while, and this was a great time in the tour to see her.  It was the third date in her tour supporting the album – Van Etten and her band play the Beacon Theater in NYC tomorrow (with Fred Armisen!) and they sounded GREAT.  They’ve definitely hit their stride, and the band was tight. Big props to her sound crew and the Royale, too: it was one of the cleanest mixes (including for the up-and-coming Nilüfer Yanya, who opened) I’d ever heard.

Update 2/9/18: Setlist is up. The Sinead O’Connor cover was a nice addition to the set.