Worden may still sound glancingly like a lot of other people, especially Nellie McKay at this point, but that’s tempered by her instrumental acumen and distinctively flighty voice. Three albums in, Worden seems like she may never develop a satisfyingly concrete sound, but the bold, chaotic atmosphere on display here is still relatively satisfying. The result is kind of a mess, but the album works better than her previous ones because it manages to sweep that mess into something that sounds intentionally diverse rather than frustratingly scattershot. But this, like her venal sonic connections to Fiona Apple and Jenny Wilson, is a surface connection, and All Things Will Unwind sounds more developed than My Brightest Diamond’s past work, ditching the rock trappings for a kitchen-sink, show tunes-aping orchestral style. Several years after leaving Sufjan Steven’s backing band, Worden is making music that sounds more like his than ever. She may not have the weirdo cachet of Björk or the focused specificity of Tune-Yards’s Merrill Garbus, but her lack of attachment to a defined persona is in some ways a strength in itself. It’s a cover that ultimately serves its purpose though, hinting at Worden’s bizarre aesthetic, her diffuse sense of oddness and weakness for theatricality. My Brightest Diamond’s strangeness is given full exposure on All Things Will Unwind’s cover art, an unholy mix of loud colors and ugly feathers, with an irritating faux-naïve facial expression from Shara Worden.
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