Angel Olsen has spent countless hours in a van or bus or pick-up truck possibly, with Will Oldham touring the continental U.S. and beyond. We like to imagine they both crossed the subject of death after passing the right amount of roadside carcasses for it to feel pertinent. Angel Olsen breaches the subject on "Acrobat" with grace and beauty of a near death experience.
Olsen sounds as though she's been close to that tunnel of light or felt that cold breath of the reaper on her neck on "Acrobat". The song channels those illuminated moments of hearing nothing and the overwhelming stimulus as you ponder if this is the last you'll see. The death knells in "Acrobat" are her nasally outburst of "I am light" while the refrain of "I thought… that I'd died" is tenderly woven as an afterthought or retraction.
Angel Olsen's Half Way Home is out now on Bathetic.
