Olsen, her arrangers and producer have created an album that simply bulges with perfection and timeless songs.
The songs are devastating, but also nourishing: it’s a whole new version of Olsen.
Ultimately this record – her best yet – is about finding a different kind of love: the quiet self-examination after the dust of a break-up finally settles.
All Mirrors is a successful example of how being bold and staying true to yourself pays off. Undeniably, this is Olsen’s most cohesive, self-aware, and searing album to date, and the era of Olsen is far from finished.
Her newfound embrace of violins, violas and cellos elevates her shadowy, often synth-infused rock to extraordinarily goosebump-inducing heights, making All Mirrors her third consecutive (and likely best) masterpiece to date.
It’s all at once a whirlwind of colliding ideas both past and present, a bold stride into the future, a new sound pushed beyond expectation, an album that marks the passing of time and the changing of minds, a continued rebirth.
Resplendent and theatrical, All Mirrors is Olsen’s most ambitious and best album yet.
Within the records dramatic, theatrical entice there are moments of pomp and grandeur nestled next to feathered heartache, periods of indelibly cool swagger that fall into the closing tracks mournful eulogies. Records like this don’t come along often.
All Mirrors is a record that implores you to spend time with it. This isn’t a one and done for the type of people that need an instant gratification fix. This is something that you can hear the amount care and thought that went into every note and every production choice.
For the most part, this is her biggest sounding release to date and it could have been given the alternative title All Ambition.
All Mirrors is challenging and confrontational, and rewards close, present listening.
It’s worth the investment; the emotion’s as visceral as it is complex, and it ranks among the best sounding records this year, deserving to be cranked on a good sound system — an album to spend time with, to fall into, to shut up and let yourself be kissed by.
Monumental and intimate in equal measure, All Mirrors' boldness is exceeded only by its profound emotional resonance.
The lovely, streamlined and confident All Mirrors is a personal journey made universal, and an album about the past that realizes the present is what’s most important.
An undeniable stunner that should go down as one of the strongest art-pop albums of the year.
The album is an extended meditation on the vagaries of fortune through regeneration, but for the listener, the experience is pure bliss.
Though she may have initially built her reputation on stark and brittle atmospheres, it turns out that her trademark vulnerability is only elevated by these stirring, highly stylized interpretations, making it a risk that pays off in spades.
Olsen has always managed to convey acidity, humour and intelligence with the deftness of her words and delivery, but the additional instrumentation on her fourth record puts it all on a much grander stage.
Whatever qualms I have about All Mirrors are comfortably outweighed by the pleasure I’ve taken in listening to it. Olsen’s vocals are gorgeous, the mix is great, the arrangements are even better, and the songwriting is imaginative and powerful. It’s a really, really great album and it deserves your time.
All Mirrors feels like the most fully-realized version of Olsen that we’ve gotten yet.
It is ... balletic and haywire, refusing to follow traditional rules of song structure. Listening to it feels like accidentally pressing play on two songs at once, and finding the combination strangely inebriating.
Even for an artist who has redefined herself with every record, All Mirrors is her boldest reinvention yet.
It is rewarding: the sound of Angel Olsen skilfully mapping out an unanticipated new territory for herself, further out on the left-field. Nothing on All Mirrors ends up quite where you expect, including the artist who made it.
A dramatic, devastating new record with some unpredictable flourishes.
It may take some time and uninterrupted concentration, but the expansive All Mirrors grows on you with repeated plays. It’s worth the effort.
This is gothic high-drama at its finest, opening up the rewarding path that is to come.
All Mirrors isn’t just a rousing, blast-worthy record, but a distillation of craft in the face of the reliable instability of human existence.
‘All Mirrors’ is a record that is so intuitive and interior, that it feels it could be difficult to penetrate - but it’s one hell of a prize if you give it the chance.
Musically, lyrically, and rhythmically, All Mirrors is beautiful and intense.
It’s fatiguing to listen to All Mirrors straight through, which makes it easy to overlook the collection’s highlights.
Some of Angel Olsen's unique personality traits as a singer-songwriter sadly get lost in All Mirrors' grander instrumental palette.
Even though these arrangements are not gratuitous, and All Mirrors is beautifully wrought, it never quite devastates.
Hehehe this is literally Titanic Rising but darker? Sign me up!!
Honestly I've never heard about Angel Olsen before, Until I've stumbled upon this album yesterday. The artwork was intriguing along with the genres of the album. So I listened to All Mirrors and my expectations were immediately extremely high, I knew it should be something that is supposed to click with me. And well... I'm a little bit confused.
Don't get me wrong, I love this album quite a bit, But after 1.5 listens I'm not sure ... read more
There's a line in Olsen's debut EP that reads:
"Please don't confuse me
with your devastating stare-downs
I'll hold your mirror up
All you have to do is turn around.
So you can see the face you make
When are giving out your soul.
Are you the only one who doesn't already know?"
The figure in question certainly gets called out during the track, and so they should, but if "If It's Alive, It Will" is an indication of anything, it's that we tend to be the most critical of ... read more
Ok people Titanic Rising, Magdalene and Punisher are three of the greatest Art Pop albuns of this century but All Mirrors is also a masterpiece and deserved more appreciation and recognition and a better user score like a 8.4, the songs All Mirrors, Lark and Chance are some of the best of the past decade.
Songs are incredibly cumbersome to the point where it's awkward and quite hard to get through. I suppose it's fitting of a concoction, since the album's themes are basically a deluge of yearning, bittersweetness, and dense inner conflict. Angels breaks through the vast production only barely, leaving many of her beautiful yet short melodies and emotive capacity to waste away and be trodden on.
"Lark" gets to its climactic essence way too fast for a paced, heavy song. It's ... read more
checked it out because of the top comments saying if you like titanic rising you'll like all mirrors. I can now confirm it's true!
1 | Lark 6:18 | 95 |
2 | All Mirrors 4:42 | 94 |
3 | Too Easy 2:57 | 86 |
4 | New Love Cassette 3:26 | 87 |
5 | Spring 3:23 | 91 |
6 | What It Is 3:16 | 86 |
7 | Impasse 4:23 | 85 |
8 | Tonight 4:38 | 87 |
9 | Summer 4:05 | 86 |
10 | Endgame 5:19 | 85 |
11 | Chance 5:59 | 95 |
#1 | / | Albumism |
#1 | / | Treble |
#1 | / | Under the Radar |
#2 | / | NBHAP |
#2 | / | NPR Music |
#2 | / | Paste |
#2 | / | Stereogum |
#3 | / | Obscure Sound |
#3 | / | Rough Trade |
#3 | / | The Skinny |