Chelsea Wolfe has always found refuge in the darkness, but she has never embraced it as much as she does now She extends her hand to She extends her hand to her. On her final solo album of 2019 The birth of violenceThe artist, who mixes musical genres, eliminated the distortion that prevailed in her previous two recordings, in 2015. abyss And 2017 Spin whisper, conjures the same ghostly wonder while highlighting the emotional power of her songwriting and the ways it has evolved since her early acoustic performances. Stripped of affectation, her music not only remained sombre and ethereal, it also sounded heavy in its gentle vulnerability. What was new wasn't just the expression of dark beauty through a different set of parameters—Wolf had done this throughout her career, dabbling in nufolk, doom metal, drone, and electronica—but an almost relaxed intimacy, driven by need. To stand. He still burns off the fatigue of spending eight years on the road, in constant motion.
The title of her new album may refer to the continuation of an endless cycle, but it also refers to what Wolfe called “rebirth.” Although once again covered in a storm of noise, sound effects and electronics, Wolf's music emerges as a meditative practice rather than an attempt to chart a mysterious, imaginative journey around the self. She continued singing: “I think I needed something to break me / I think I needed something to shake me.” The birth of violence“Mother Road”, and if this album marks a breaking point, She extends her hand to She extends her hand to her It is broken during. Rather than readjusting musical boundaries again or simply retreating to older, sludgier sounds, her goal is to reconcile “darkness and comfort,” as she puts it, and step into the light on converging paths of self-actualization and retreat. After spending some time working on less obvious personal projects – the soundtrack to a 2022 horror film X And collaborate with Converge in 2021 Blood Moon: Me – Wolf has now found ways to separate the brooding, gothic nature of her earlier work from the continuum of toil and turmoil, resulting in her most uplifting and exhilarating album to date.
Woolf still appeals to the mythical and otherworldly in presenting her experience, but her language is strikingly direct: “This shit doesn’t define me anymore,” she declared on “Echo Chamber Whispers” between references to ditching exoskeletons and “misrepresenting The old self in poetry. Her voice was soft, but her intimate force focused on the foreboding scene rather than being swept up in it. If an old song like “American Darkness” conjures comparisons with classic trip-hop, the genre's influence here refracts in ways that place it firmly within Wolf's world: the industrial beat is punishing, and the instrumentation threatens to bring down the simple foundation of the song without completely obliterating it — until the visceral outro, where it sounds That combination absorbs Wolf's harrowing cries of “more, more, more” and finally “it's over”. It is not dissonance that excites, but what lies within and outside the shadow; Even on a steadier song like “Salt,” the detailed production keeps things compositionally engaging — you just have to lean in for a little more.
The influence of 1990s electronics is particularly prominent She extends her hand to She extends her hand to heralthough it can be traced back to Wolff's 2013 record Pain is beautyWhat sets it apart is the collaborative and deconstructive approach that goes beyond genre fusion abyss. Wolf wrote the songs with multi-instrumentalist Ben Chisholm, drummer Jess Jury, and guitarist Brian Tullau, but you can hear how deeply the songs were reshaped in the production and mixing process between producer Dave Sitke and Sean Everett, reflecting the transformation of Wolf himself. The clarity here is biting at times, such as the guitar solo that glows through the sparse closing track “Dusk,” and the songs feel fully realized, but they also give the impression of crossing a liminal space between beginning and completion, between decline and end. Drowning in the unknown. The turbulent, quivering pulse of “Eyes Like Nightshade” seems to have arranged itself from broken pieces; “Tunnel Lights” slows the tempo and builds the tension, and it's almost a miracle that Wolf's voice doesn't drown out this mysterious pull.
Wolfe began writing these songs in the spring of 2020 and was midway through the process when she sobered up from alcohol in early 2021. “During the sobering process, you have to enter this cave, because that's where the treasure is,” she said. And he said, She extends her hand She finds her crawling through and out of it, appreciating her new presence rather than some dim light at the end of the tunnel. Even “Everything's Turning Blue,” a song about ridding yourself of toxicity, raises the constant question: “What do I need to do to heal you from me?” If Wolf wrote the songs two years later, they would probably still loom large – coming out of them is an ongoing process. But you can feel it happening, and more than any single song, it's the penultimate “Place in the Sun” that marks a tidal shift, catharsis giving way to softness: “I'm safe in this body/Safe in this heart/I've come all this way The distance to live this life,” she sings in a soft, high voice. The sentiment is so overwhelming in its simplicity that even as the song's cold, mechanical rumble continues, its sound sweeps into the barn. Under her wing, the beauty is nothing short of breathtaking.
