Sharon Van Etten, 'Tramp' (Jagjaguwar)

Let's get this part out of the way: "Tramp" is so stuffed with yawning, slow-motion reverb and swirling background noise the words sometimes melt like fauns in quicksand. But also know this: The album — Van Etten's first beyond minimalist folk — is haunting, hypnotic, original and brilliant. Like a young and female Leonard Cohen, Van Etten builds songs from the language of pain and desire, letting the sound and valence of her words lead, as a poet might. "I was late/Don't let love wait — and don't let love weigh anything," she sings, on "In Line." She can also come straight to the point, with brutal clarity: "But who is my man? The memory or you?" ("All I Can").

Van Etten sings in an odd, vulnerable, dreamy style all her own, eliding words, breaking phrases in unusual places and falling off notes with a sighing melisma that sounds nothing like Billie Holiday but is nevertheless a distant cousin. For all her flimsy, driven-snow purity, there's a theatrical rock 'n' roller buried in Van Etten who knows not only all about Phil Spector but also the Paris Sisters. The slow, inexorable crescendo of "All I Can," the album's best song, with its funereal organ, is almost too much to bear; "We Are Fine" balloons from plinkety-plink ukulele to anthemic clouds.

Other highlights include the repetitive, minor, drinking-songlike declaration of "Magic Chord"; the aching breakup cry of "Ask" ("I think I need more than the flowers and letters, man"); and the cool self-interrogation ("I am bad at loving") of "Leonard."

OK, so you're going to need the lyric sheet. You'll soon have the words memorized.

Paul de Barros, Seattle Times music critic

Other new releases

Paul McCartney, "Kisses on the Bottom" (Hear Music)

The Fray, "Scars & Stories" (Epic)

Mark Lanegan, "Blues Funeral" (4ad)