Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She
What more can Chelsea Wolfe explore? From the industrial doom and drone like qualities of Abyss (2015), to the sludgy Hiss Spun (2017), and the Neo Folk Birth of Violence (2019), Chelsea has never had an issue with quality, and the common denominator throughout her whole career is authenticity – Chelsea is as real as they come, soaked in gothic bleach. It has been a long 4 years since Birth of Violence, and with that comes She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She. It is an interesting title, void of punctuation, circling back on itself, interpreting a cyclical quality.
Whispers In The Echo Chamber opens the album and you are immediately thrust inside the hallucination of a dream like chamber, with a swirling and frightening echo that could be ghosts calling Chelsea out of a dream. A heavy Trip Hop beat comes in after 15 seconds as the soundscapes continue in the background, evolving yet lingering beneath the surface as Chelsea twists her old self into poetry. Whispers….. is not unlike the opening to Carrion Flowers from Abyss, although Whispers..... feels more particular than anything she has written before. In the last minute the song explodes and its industrial grungy finale coupled with anguished vocals is sure to be a live hit - 25 seconds of it is not enough, leaving us wanting more.
Chelsea has been through a bit it seems, and She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out to She is all the better for it. It is as personal as Birth of Violence but in a different way, Chelsea is expunging something here in a powerfully cathartic manner. She has been punished and she has been blessed. Chelsea claims to be undoing and cutting ties. Yet cutting ties is not as linear and as simple as it sounds, and we find this out on the closing track Dusk, where true love’s shadow still awaits, held anew and whole again – don’t give me up Chelsea sings.
House of Self-Undoing has an upbeat Radiohead or even Killing Joke drive to it, with its electronic backdrop providing intriguing depth. Where the album succeeds is in its ability to entangle the listener in Chelsea’s own web of undoing, yet she seems free now of the painful burden that was Birth of Violence, free to explore her gothic sensibilities in a whole new light (or absence thereof). Chelsea sounds fantastic throughout the ten tracks; her newfound sobriety is obviously helping her vocal chords. Everything Turns Blue returns to territory explored on the Neo Folkish Birth of Violence, but it has an electronic underbelly that separates it. Chelsea is an incredible songwriter, nothing is overly complex in terms of her musicianship, but her timing is impeccable. She knows when things need to take a turn, like the Danny Carey like rolls that appear before the second chorus or just when she needs to take a breather – less is more here. Space is used exceptionally well.
From this point forward, the heavy Trip Hop elements take a back seat, and it requires the listener to focus beneath the surface. There are not as many vocal sections to grab hold of, but there are just as many rewards with repeat listens. The album is heavy, thought provoking, multi-faceted and layered – interesting and forever evolving and challenging, and those are the best kinds of albums. Tunnel Lights has a lounge jazz type feel to it, coupled with a cloud of Massive Attack hovering over it and is a highlight. The Liminal follows suit but is more present as Chelsea lets go of the tethered. Eyes Like The Nightshade could have been lifted from Radiohead’s Amnesiac, but Chelsea sounds much more believable than York does on that album.
She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out to She is an album of utmost quality and one of Chelsea’s better albums, showcasing her evolution and growth as an artist and as a person.
Killer stuff.