The acoustic, soft sound of Sharon Van Etten’s voice combined with the intensity of her lyrics and solid writing of her newest album Epic make this album stand out from others. Drowning in her chill harmonies, tasteful musicality past most singer songwriters and heart-felt, breaking lyrics, Etten’s newest album is one that hard is to forget, surpassing many other female singer songwriters who only hit up the mediocre.

She kicked off early 2008 and got the attention of Greg Weeks, who brought her into his studio for her debut full length recording, Because I Was in Love. Epic, coming out October 5th, brings us into a new playing field- more pop, more drive, adding arrangements with tambourines and the harmonica, tasteful drums and electric to fill it out, and Etten’s strong, unashamed and unshowy voice brings out just the message she wants to portray with no boundaries.

The feel of every song is that it was written directly to someone, a history of Etten’s hard past in relationships; fragile, bordering on insecurity, yet incredibly strong in her vulnerability and not afraid to sing of invisibility, hurt, betrayal, and to bring out beauty from pain. Cold honesty is interwoven with questions screaming for answers and points her listeners to our own lives, “following blind, following blind/what if I do?” Epic is screaming for you to listen – a solid and real album hard to compare to others in its genre and one worth the time.