It’s been five years since Chelsea Wolfe’s last record – 2019’s “Birth of Violence” – which marked a sort of return to the more stripped-back arrangements of earlier records like 2012’s acoustic collection “Unknown Rooms,” and away from some of the heavier sounds her albums had been trending towards.
Not to say Chelsea Wolfe has released no music since 2019. On the contrary, she’s been busy: collaborations with Mrs. Piss on 2020’s “Surgery”; with Converge on 2021’s “Bloodmoon: I”; with Emma Ruth Rundle on the single “Anhedonia”; and her 2021 double A side “Woodstock / Green Altar.
Now, returning from collaborations and standalone singles, Chelsea Wolfe is back with her seventh album, “She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She,” released on February 9, 2024. This album gathers up several of her familiar strands – the quasi-metal doom witch; the neo-pagan dark-folk goddess – but folds in some other influences and genres that have been meaningful to her recently in her struggles through early sobriety. The sonic landscape ranges from shades of electronica, to Massive Attack / Trippy trip hop, to Nine Inch Nails industrial and solo Trent Reznor soundtrack, and latter-day darker Depeche Mode. In particular she has cited Depeche Mode’s “Violator” as particularly significant, alongside Nine Inch Nails and Tricky.
Speaking with Alternative Press (https://www.altpress.com/chelsea-wolfe-she-reaches-out-to-she-reaches-out-to-she-influences/), Wolfe listed an interesting mix of key songs that shaped the new album –
- Depeche Mode’s “Waiting for the Night”
- The Smashing Pumpkins’s “Daphne Descends”
- Björk’s “Bachelorette”
- Madonna’s “Frozen”
- Nine Inch Nails’s “The Hand That Feeds”
- Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”
- Low’s “Rome (Always in the Dark)”
- Radiohead’s “Where I End and You Begin”
- TV on the Radio’s “Staring at the Sun”
- Lhasa de Sela’s “Anywhere on This Road”
She’s not kidding, either, as a close listen will reveal. For example, the opening track, “Whispers in the Echo Chamber,” certainly has echoes of Tricky beats, blended with heavy guitar powerchords that would fit in a Nine Inch Nails song, over which Wolfe’s trademark haunting, swooping, bending vocals arc.
The distorted bass of “House of Self-Undoing” is like a Soft Moon arrangement, driven along relentlessly by frenetic-paced snare.
“Tunnel lights” channels the cold emotion of a Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross composition, or even a Nick Cave / Warren Ellis soundtrack.
You can hear some of that “Teardrop” along with late Radiohead and a touch of Reznor on, say, “Eyes Like Nightshade.”
I’ve often said Wolfe is the Goth Lana Del Rey, and I challenge a less-familiar listener to pass a blind ‘taste test’ with a Lana song vs. Wolfe’s “Place in the Sun” from this record.
Despite its sonic range, the end result is cohesive and emotionally holistic, and makes for an engaging and powerful record. Wolfe has said the album was about “the past self reaching out to the present self reaching out to the future self to summon change, growth, and guidance,” and she has found a compelling mix of genres to add to her own unique sound, in expressing that journey.
ronanconroy 