The time had come, Angel Olsen realized in the fading summer of 2018, to take her new songs out of the house. "Whole New Mess", Olsen's first solo album since her 2012 debut and an emotional portrait so intimate and vulnerable you can hear her find meaning in these crises in real-time. "Whole New Mess" is the sound of her first figuring out their shape, making sense for herself of these injuries. Considered alongside All Mirrors, Whole New Mess is a poignant and pointed reminder that songs are more than mere collections of words, chords, and even melodies. They are webs of moods and moments and ideas, qualities that can change from one month to the next and can say just as much as the perfect progression or an exquisite chord. In that sense, these 11 songs-solitary, frank, and unflinching examinations of what it's like to love, lose, and survive-are entirely new. This is the sound of Angel Olsen, sorting through the kind of trouble we've all known, as if just for herself and whoever else needs it.