Can You Help From Beyond

Hercules & Love Affair featuring Sharon Van Etten “Omnion”

Sharon Van Etten’s voice has a much colder tone on “Omnion” than anything I’ve ever heard her do on her own, but somehow that just amplifies the heart of this song. She sounds incredibly serene as she sings lyrics that are essentially a prayer to some greater power for strength and grace in the face of adversity. The arrangement for the piece sounds like a dance track that’s been hollowed out and converted into a chapel – there’s a holy hum to the keyboards that makes it all sound like a hymn. The line that crushes me comes early on – “If I am your child, why have you put so much in my life to fight?” Van Etten doesn’t sing the line with rage or frustration, though it’d be totally justified. She sounds like she already knows there’s no good answer to the question, and moves on to requests for more reasonable things: love, deliverance from fear, working to be a better person. She’s asking for help, but sings with a clarity of mind that suggests she’s on the right track without it.

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