Big Time probably would have been an apt album title for Angel Olsen’s all-encompassing 2019 indie epic, All Mirrors. The flourishes of cinematic synths and shimmering, cosmo-stretching production were all there for it. Instead, the vagabond songwriter’s sixth studio effort retraces her roots into rustic spirits, but with a bigger world view in tow, not to mention the weight of grief and her very own late-blooming coming out story. Informed as well by her own journey as an artist, Olsen here leans heavily into a warm acoustic bends, just enough twang, an orchestral debonair, and her sky-wide croon to consider it a true modern queer country classic in which she loses and loves before arriving at a point better knowing herself. While Angel Olsen can always be counted on to take the dusty road less traveled, Big Time is a reminder that her map is never without careful compass.

Highlights: “Big Time”, “All the Flowers”, “Chasing the Sun”

Angel Olsen’s Big Time is available now on Jagjaguwar.

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