Sharon Van Etten, who’s studying psychology with the hopes of one day becoming a therapist, lifted the name for her new band, Sharon Van Etton & the Attachment Theory, from a theory devised by British psychiatrist John Bowlby. The revolutionary theory emphasized that the bonds between children and their primary caregivers shape people’s relationships later in life. The band’s self-titled debut puts Bowlby’s theory into practice by treating each musician—and each instrument—as an equal.
Van Etten’s 2019 solo album Remind Me Tomorrow eschewed electric guitar in favor of synthesizers, but Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory finds her leaning back into the guitar rock of her previous work, while also dabbling in ’80s-era synth-pop sounds like the rubbery bass at the start of “Live Forever.” On “Idiot Box,” for one, bassist Devra Hoff plays in counterpoint with the song’s keyboards, which beep and pulse colorfully.
Van Etten’s music has a paradoxical strength to it: It’s often restrained, but it can also embrace Springsteen-style bombast, and she mines drama from the tension between these two modes. For the most part, the band is cautious about how quickly they let their songs build: Hoff often carries the melody while weaving around Jorge Balbi’s drums and Van Etten’s rhythm guitar.
As a vocalist, Van Etten is prone to making large leaps up the musical scale, but she also employs her voice, excitingly and surprisingly, to add an ethereal texture to her songs. On the booming “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like),” her vocals are blanketed in reverb so thick that they sound like a never-ending loop, like a snake eating its tale. On “Fading Beauty,” she sings “walking on air” slowly and breathily as the arrangement—including piano and strings—grows more complex while simultaneously maintaining a hushed disquiet.
The album’s closing track, “I Want You Here,” picks up in a similar space as “Fading Beauty,” with Van Etten crooning softly against soupy strings and a faint kick drum. She calls out to her partner: “I want you here/Even when it hurts…Even when it gets worse.” The unease running through Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory is finally answered by the reward of love, bringing it to a satisfying, if tentative, conclusion.
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