Before the ear-splitting pleas of the full room coax them back out for an encore, Sharon Van Etten and her band spend the final seconds of their set at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., slumped over their instruments, seemingly knocked out by their own crescendos. Over the enveloping swell of "I'm Wrong," Van Etten goes from tenderly gazing at the rapt audience to mercilessly bearing down on the strings of her Jazzmaster. As the guitarist beside her faces his amp and falls to his knees with a looping, soaring soprano flying into the ether behind her, Van Etten stands, daring the room to turn away from a chorus as earnest as she is: "It's pain to believe in any song you sing/Tell me this even though you can't believe... More >>>