Angel Olsen

Soup Kitchen, Manchester

5 Stars

It's hard to tell whether Angel Olsen is being sincere when she sings "everything is tragic," over funereal minor keys on White Fire.

Her monotone and thousand-yard stare could be the product of ennui. Then again, the lyric's extreme mordancy could just as easily be the kind of songwriting joke she learned from Bonnie "Prince" Billy, with whom the Missourian formerly toured as guitarist and backing vocalist.

This apprenticeship serves her well for while Olsen has a reserved stage presence she manages to keep the 200-capacity venue deathly quiet for the duration of her 12-song set. It's a reverential atmosphere that suits material that aches with heartbreak and a loneliness that loves company, whether she's playing with her three-piece backing band or solo.

It's a sense of people being unable to connect that's advertised from the outset when she's "sittin' lonely with somebody lonely too," on Hi-Five, a track that could be twinned with Sharon van Etten's Serpents in its emotional impact.

This kinship continues on Lights Out, a tear-soaked number on which Stewart Bronaugh plays slide guitar and on which Olsen teases out nuances with a vibrato conveying defiance and suppressed fury.

While van Etten is a clear touchstone on her breakthrough second album Burn Your Fire For No Witness, Olsen's live show brings out other influences. Tiniest Seed is reminiscent of the hushed alt-folk of the Cowboy Junkies, while set-closer May As Well calls to mind the '50s country noir of Neko Case.

In lesser hands these numbers would just be pleasingly anachronistic. The catch in Olsen's controlled intensity and whispered intimacies, however, has an honesty that's more than capable of soothing lonesomeness.

Susan Darlington