Olympia, the second studio album from Canadian band Austra, is a quiet affair of restrained electronica and ’80s vibes that holds the listener in a place of relaxed sparsity for the duration. But while I enjoyed the album, I fear that the voice of frontwoman Katie Stelmanis will divide audiences.
The album gets off to a slightly slow start with ‘What We Done’, which builds up from almost nothing at the beginning of the track. The first half of this song set me up a little in opposition to Stelmanis, with the emptiness of the track making her voice sound slightly on the weak and reedy end of the spectrum, but as the instrumentation grew and her voice began to be surrounded by harmonies, she grew on me. This continued through the next couple of tracks too, while Stelmanis’ voice didn’t change, it started to feel like it was just another well thought-out element of the instrumentation of the tracks.
Stelmanis’ voice sounds a little like if the love-child of Bjork and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden got singing lessons from Florence Welch, and therein lies her potential problem. This would be a pretty annoying concept for a lot of people, myself included, but within the body of this album it just ends up working. ‘Fire’ really showcases how Stelmanis’ voice fits perfectly within this musical structure, particularly when it’s padded out with some harmonies.
The album as a whole is a good listen. I really enjoyed relaxing into the music on the train to and from work. The tracks have a kind of mournful quality to them, but this doesn’t make the music drag, there’s still a lot of momentum keeping the album going. I really enjoyed the short and sweet ‘I Don’t Care (I’m A Man)’, the relaxed movement of ‘We Become’, and the super ’80s track ‘Annie (Oh Muse You)’ toward the end of the album.
So if you can power through your aversion to the current zeitgeist of reliving the ’80s, and you can give Katie Stelmanis’ voice a try, this album is a really good listen. Use it to zone out on some public transport this week and see what you think.
8/10
Reviewer: Louisa Bulley