The time had come, Angel Olsen realized in the fading summer of 2018, to take her new songs out of the house. Olsen’s 2016 marvel, ‘My Woman’, had been a career breakthrough but it catalysed a period of personal tumult, too: a painful breakup, an uneasy recovery, an inadequate reckoning. At home in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Olsen penned songs that finally grappled with these troubles, particularly love - how forever is too much to promise, how relationships can lock us into static versions of ourselves, how you can go through hell just to make someone else happy. These heartsore explorations shape ‘Whole New Mess’, Olsen’s first solo album since her 2012 debut and an emotional portrait so intimate and vulnerable you can hear her find meaning in these crises in real-time.

At least nine of the eleven songs on ‘Whole New Mess’ should sound familiar to anyone who has heard ‘All Mirrors’, Olsen’s grand 2019 masterpiece that earned high honours on prestigious year-end lists and glossy spreads in stylish magazines. ‘Lark’, ‘Summer’, ‘Chance’ - they are all here, at least in some skeletal form and with slightly different titles.