Van Etten offers tough-minded songs, full of complexities

Sharon Van Etten is an itinerant singer-songwriter. Originally from New Jersey, she went to college in Tennessee, where she was involved in a destructive relationship that she mines in many of her direct, unflinching songs. She now resides in Brooklyn.

Van Etten's career roots, however, begin here in Philadelphia. She recorded her first two brilliantly discomforting albums, Because I Was in Love (2009) and Epic (2010), with producer Brian McTear in his Fishtown studio, and Philly is her second home.

The subtle settings McTear crafted for her matched the bared-nerve candor of Van Etten's lyrics. The brand-new Tramp, produced by the National's Aaron Dessner, is equally stirring and tough-minded, but more muscular and, at times, vengeful. It provided the core of Van Etten's 65-minute set Friday night at Johnny Brenda's in Fishtown in a double bill with Shearwater.

The opening date of Van Etten's joint tour with the Austin, Texas, band, the show drew a sold-out crowd that included Van Etten's parents.

Van Etten quickly set aside her former fragility by opening with the edgy electric strums that form the basis of "Warsaw" and "Serpents."

"You enjoy sucking on dreams, so I will fall asleep with someone other than you / I had a thought you would take me seriously," she sang in the latter, one of several songs that built to an insistent climax.

Van Etten deserves to be taken seriously: She sings in a clear, unaffected alto that at times recalls Linda Thompson, and her work is full of complexities and complications. "I'm bad," she repeated in the lilting "Leonard," and paused before adding "at loving you"; the song suggested this acknowledgment was hard-earned. The loud numbers were powerful, but it was the nuanced, acoustic guitar or harmonium ones - such as "Joke or a Lie" and "Love More" - that held the crowd in rapt, silent attention.

Jonathan Meiburg's Shearwater is less interested in nuance than intensity, especially on the excellent née album Animal Joy, which, like Van Etten's Tramp, is the band's most aggressive work to date. Meiburg used to be in Okkervil River with Will Sheff (who, in turn, used to be in Shearwater), and both bands share a fondness for cerebral, churning songs.

Meiburg has an ornithology background, and "Animal Life" and "Pushing the River" used environmental imagery to explore personal turmoil. Their 50-minute set showcased his powerful voice, a remarkable instrument that ranges from a delicate choirboy falsetto to a full-throated yowl. Many songs ended cathartically with his holding a clear, urgent note atop a wall of throbbing electric guitars.