Angel Olsen – Dingwalls, London 25/03/14

A lot has been made about the differences in sound between Angel Olsen’s last album, and this year’s heart stopping Burn Your Fire For No Witness. If you haven’t heard them, the broad difference is this: the new one has tons of distortion and rhythm. As Olsen moved into this album’s touring cycle, we were left to wonder how she would approach the performance. Would she embrace the new recorded sound? Or would she strip the songs back, preserving the dignified fragility of her last record?

Tonight, she splits the difference: playing with a full band, but delivering a surprisingly clean sound. Sadly, the result is a performance which labours the songs with too much clutter, without adding the clout of their studio counterparts.

The set opens with Half Way Home cut “Free”, and demonstrates the best parts of tonight’s full band arrangements, using the vibrancy of live musicians to tinker with the dynamics of the song, and letting fresh textures push her vocal performance into new areas. For any of tonight’s shortcomings, you could always count on Olsen’s voice suddenly and surprisingly turning the sense of a lyric on its head, by delivering it in a thrillingly different way.

It’s easy to forget – comparing her last album to the full blooded scuzz of this one – that Half Way Home was actually loaded with live band arrangements, but were just far less assuming. So tonight, it’s the Half Way Home material wears itself nicely; the band easing its way into the margins of Olsen’s performance, rather than dominating it.

But far too often, with renditions of the newer material, the band enters into a paradox by cluttering the mix, without really filling it out. On “Forgiven/Forgotten”, for instance, the distortion is stripped away, and the groove feels forced, while Olsen struggles to wrap any melody around the resulting framework. Without the urgency or the power, it’s hard to know why the songs are unnecessarily dressed in extra weight.

Some of the finest moments are when the material is given the space to breathe. Even though the songs rarely build to the climax they promise, it’s great that the band have the wisdom to let them build organically. With “Hi-Five” and “High And Wild”, the textures begin with basically Olsen and a guitar, the band slowly easing into her territory, adding components layer by layer.

Still, the absolute best stretch of the set are the two songs Olsen performs completely alone. On album, “Iota” is one of the most rudderless and repetitive songs; tonight, it’s a show stopping highlight. The soft fingerpicking and hypnotic cycles don’t just invite her lyrics to the fore (which are unfailingly affecting) but the voice which brought Olsen to prominence in the first place. “White Fire” is even better. Stretching out for minutes longer than its already lengthy album cousin, the song is close to perfection. It’s so macabre to be comical in the hands of anyone else, but Olsen turns it into a chilling dagger, as relatable as it is terrifying.

It’s a shame that all tonight’s material isn’t given the opportunity to highlight Olsen’s primary strengths. On record, the gamble paid off handsomely: the full arrangements helping Olsen to slip into new dynamics, reaching new emotional ground. But tonight, the additional instrumentation manages to do the near-impossible: lessen the power of Olsen’s sensationally affecting voice.

• Photos by Jason Williamson. See the full gallery here.