"It's too much," Sharon Van Etten sings on We've Been Going About This All Wrong, "but I'll try." Well, yes. You don't really need to know the specifics of Van Etten's recent experiences to relate, to understand the coexistence of overwhelming fatigue and resigned commitment she expresses. On her sixth album, much of which was written in the sustained trauma of the past two years, Van Etten is asking herself the same questions we've all been asking: How do we take care of each other when it feels like the world is ending? In the face of climate catastrophe, systemic injustice, a global pandemic or other earth-shattering forces outside our control, does it even seem possible to nurture relationships with ourselves, our families and our communities? Van Etten has long known how to match stories of confusion, hurt or fear with a powerful, surefooted delivery; her songs sound like self-preservation even when they tell of self-doubt. Here, she turns her gaze towards the wreckage and offers a tribute to how impossible and necessary it feels, now and always, to keep investing in our care for each other.
Over the last 13 years, Van Etten's albums have grown in scope from the spare, acoustic sound of her first few releases to the ambitious, bold palette of 2019's Remind Me Tomorrow. That release came after Van Etten took some time away from music; in the preceding years, she wrote a film score, got into acting, went back to school to study psychology and became a mother, all of which inspired that record's fearless, confident sound. Then came some changes that were outside Van Etten's control. She moved her family from New York, where she'd lived for 15 years, to California, just in time for the pandemic to force everyone inside. (She also planned to have a wedding in May of 2020; the pandemic botched that plan, too.) She told NME that the move was motivated by a desire to "learn how to diversify" her music career, so she wouldn't have to be so reliant on touring. Suddenly, touring wasn't even a possibility.
