Burn Your Fire For No Witness
by Angel Olsen

Listen & Collect

Complete your collection or upgrade your listening experience.

Angel Olsen bestography

Burn Your Fire For No Witness is ranked 3rd best out of 11 albums by Angel Olsen on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Angel Olsen is My Woman which is ranked number 708 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 2,441.

Angel Olsen album bestography « Higher ranked (1,256th)
All Mirrors
This album (1,774th)
Burn Your Fire For No Witness
Lower ranked (2,988th) »
Big Time

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

Listen to Burn Your Fire For No Witness on YouTube

Loading content from YouTube...

Burn Your Fire For No Witness track list

  Track ratings The tracks on this album have an average rating of 83 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).

Sort Sort by

Track pick (1000 - 100 votes) Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.

Burn Your Fire For No Witness rankings

Burn Your Fire For No Witness rankings summary
Overall rank: 1,774th | 2010s rank: 278th | 2014 rank: 29th  Overall chart history
(Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). (Last updated: 4 hours ago).

Burn Your Fire For No Witness collection

Burn Your Fire For No Witness ratings

Average Rating: 
76/100 (from 259 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 5 ratings for this album.  | Show all 259 ratings for this album.

Sort Sort by
RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
75/100
 !
07/01/2026 21:04 Exist-en-ciel  Ratings distribution  15,10970/100
 
75/100
 !
02/27/2026 23:09 DaveH68  Ratings distribution  1,36376/100
 
75/100
 !
01/21/2026 10:46 SomethingSpecial  Ratings distribution  1,77482/100
 
80/100
 !
10/20/2025 10:45 JacobMullis  Ratings distribution  77588/100
 
85/100
 !
08/03/2025 12:28 Igtonumama  Ratings distribution  10,78663/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)

This album is rated in the top 5% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 76.1/100, a mean average of 75.5/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 76.3/100. The standard deviation for this album is 13.4.


Please log in or create an account if you want to be able to leave a rating

Burn Your Fire For No Witness favourites

Showing latest 20 members who have added this album as a favourite  | Show all 29 members

Burn Your Fire For No Witness comments

Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 14 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)

Rating:  
85/100
'If you've still got some light in you then go before it's gone
Burn your fire for no witness, it's the only way it's done
Fierce and light and young
Fierce and light and young
Hit the ground and run
Hit the ground and run'

(Track 4 "White Fire")

5 years post release I'm still obsessed with this album , it gets me every time
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 12/23/2018 00:37 | #227708
Unfucktheworld is such a simple song, yet very moving. I also really like forgiven/forgotten and hi-five. The rest of the album is great, but I think on both this and My Woman the first three tracks are near perfection.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
70/100
From 12/10/2018 19:05 | #226695
Pretty good melancholic indie rock, but it suffers from a lack of variety. Good trim a few tracks off of this and the album would get much better.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
85/100
This was easily one of my favourite albums for 2014 and introduced me to Angel Olsen , a sad melencoly runs through its entirity . It's far from perfect but a beautiful piece of work none the less
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
From 07/02/2016 04:55 | #170299
It storms out the gate, but ultimately suffers from a frustrating lack of focus and somewhat monochromatic production that often mutes Angel Olsen's immense, natural gifts as a singer and performer rather than accentuating them. The first four songs are small gems and add the closer Windows you would have one of the best EPs of the decade; unfortunately the rest of the album feature somewhat dated guitar-heavy tracks and loose jam-style numbers that don't get room to breathe under the constant blanket of reverb and fuzz; it's like a lot of colorful personalities who all have something to say but are rendered immombile under a deflated tent. While Angel Olsen is blossoming as a songwriter and Burn Your Fire For No Witness does show much promise of greater things to come despite a number of very high highs the album ultimately tantalizes more than it delivers.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
95/100
From 01/07/2016 06:19 | #156030
Something about this album resonates with me: maybe it's all the Leonard Cohen tribute sound (which I dare say she does better than Cohen himself). But there are many styles on this record, and Olsen is able to switch between them effortlessly, all with a strong and convincing voice. I mostly don't know what she is even singing about, but that sort of doesn't matter to me.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 09/24/2015 12:53 | #150369
Peaks way too early, but a lot of promise. Perhaps would work better without the endless 90s head-nod indulgences of reverb and feedback, because Olsen is an exceptional songwriter... the murky production just kind of overpowers her a bit too much here. Still the first four tracks and the closer alone still make this a solid album overall and hopefully she wrings out the musical dampness next time around.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
95/100
From 09/13/2015 05:29 | #149642
Such a beautiful album. Very few albums resonate with me on an emotional level the way this one does.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
90/100
From 12/29/2014 10:16 | #130352
Dead and yet still alive... Like Leonard Cohen!
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
90/100
From 12/12/2014 09:27 | #129250
One of the best albums of 2014. This is heartbreaking, and beautiful. I'm in love with Angel Olsen.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

Please log in or create an account if you want to be able to add a comment

Your feedback for Burn Your Fire For No Witness

Anonymous
What do you think of this album? Leave a comment or rate it below.
The top-voted comments get featured on our charts, Album of the Day, and the site newsletter.
Log in or create an account to rate this album, leave comments and join the discussion.