Is it wrong to go back? Why does it cost so much to move forward when we’re carrying deep memories that weight more than we can carry? How do we use the past to push us instead of pull us?  

Sharon Van Etten has always had a knack for making you look back. Her catalogue is influenced by her memories of lost and difficult relationships, of a once spirited youth and the power of love to overcome it all. Her albums are not faithful stories of her life, but her personal lyrics have always reflected her thoughts on how to move on after being hurt, using beautiful imagery to give life to her songs.   Now, she decided to jump ahead and give a different background to those narratives. Her country-influenced indie rock has always had the guitar as a protagonist, her last album, the excellent Are We There, from 2014, started drifting away from that. Now, in Remind Me Tomorrow she embraces new sounds making her music feel expansive as she blasts her feelings with that powerful voice, that only goes forward on these tracks.

Third single, and arguably the best song in the album, ‘Seventeen’, is also the most Van Etten-sounding of the collection. The driving pianos, the steady beats, the heartful chorus, every sound is mixed to give life to what Sharon herself called a ‘tribute to New York’. The song is filled with nostalgia as she sings to a younger self, repeating ‘You’re just seventeen!’ like a mantra.

The remembrance aspect of the song and its expansive nature are a pretty good summary of the approach given by Van Etten on the album. A synth-heavy and beat-driven affair, many of the songs here use new elements to carry the singer’s characteristic lyricism. ‘Nobody’s easy to love’ has quirky beats and ‘Memorial Day’ a throbbing bass line, and they don’t stop being an example of how Van Etten is excellent at portraying nostalgia. Of course, it’s more obvious in the ballads, like ‘Malibu’, and the beautiful melody of  ‘You Shadow’, but still the album can surprise you at every turn.

Ultimately the album’s main power force, and probably the one  behind its predecessors too, it’s Sharon Van Etten’s voice. In the last 5 years, she returned to study, she became a mother and started acting and all this personal evolution is portrayed in every vocal track in these songs. Wether it’s the somber tone she conjures in ‘Jupiter 4’ or the effects she uses in the closing track, her singing is essential to enjoy the album a lot more. And it’s moments like the thrilling climax in ‘Seventeen’ when she shouts: ‘I know what you’re gonna be!’ that make you feel deeply. It makes you wanna tell your younger self the same thing, but coming to peace with the fact that you’ll never be able to, makes you realize where you are and where you’re going. Yes, the past can be a burden, but, if you want to, it can become exactly the uplifting thrust that you need, and Remind Me Tomorrow is the perfect example of this feeling.