Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory – Trouble

26th January 2025 · 2020s, 2025, Music

Sharon Van Etten is my favourite female singer and her latest release, Trouble, goes straight into her top ten for me. After delving deeply into electronica she has emerged with a new band and a new sound.


The Attachment Theory isn’t a new project – it’s comprised of Van Etten’s longtime collaborators Jorge Balbi, Devra Hoff and Teeny Lieberson.

Though the group had produced music together for Sharon’s releases as a solo act, this is their first official project together, evolving from time spent in the studio together.

Writing and recording in collaboration with her band for the first time, she’s still tackling the same themes – life and living, love and being loved – but the sound is new, built around snappy synths and Hoff’s basslines.

This song, Trouble, is the second to be put out from their new album, following the first track Afterlife last October.

Its theme is the difficulty of communication with people you love, often from different generations, who don’t share your opinions or philosophy of life.

“It’s about the idea of having to coexist with people you love who have opposing views, and not being able to share deep parts of yourself and your narrative based on someone else’s beliefs,” she explains.

“It’s about when there’s that big part of you that someone who loves you can’t know because it’s not something they want to hear or are willing to learn about or understand, and those painful realizations when you choose to love and respect someone else’s needs over your own to salvage a relationship.”

We’ve all had these moments; never more so, I imagine, than in America today.

Here they are performing the song in The Church Studio in Crouch End – and that’s something I would dearly love to have witnessed.