Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss

Artist: Chelsea Wolfe

–

Release: The Abyss LP

–

Genre: Industrial Gothic Neofolk Doom Metal

–

This lady is just outdoing herself right now, and it’s an absolute pleasure to behold. This record is a lot of things – ostentatiously heavy, cripplingly dark, and intensely moody to name just a few. This is the kind of album that makes it a bit difficult to talk about whether or not it’s diverse, in a way that I massively appreciate, because it is simultaneously aggressively single-minded and, within the context of it’s own aesthetics, extremely varied. Hugely distorted electric guitars are omnipresent, accounting for a very large proportion of the timbral landscape, yet there are some very creative and interesting electronic tones, as well as the mournful strings we’ve heard on her output before.

But her voice.

It’s not that she’s the strongest singer in the world, but that’s not the point – this isn’t Opera, nor is it good ol’ Motown Soul – this is dark, existential, gothic distress. It’s emotive, fragile. She’s unerringly accurate, has a not insubstantial range, and, perhaps most importantly, makes breathy, delicate singing convincing. Sometimes she softly lilts, sometimes she cuts through with sharp-edged midrange. Again there’s a lot of variety here, including some distorted sounds (a la the chorus of Iron Moon) contrasted with more gentle strains (the beginning of Maw). I do wonder who is behind the reverb-drenched, distorted, Black Metal-esque roaring at the end of Survive (although I’m not even sure if that is a voice…)

https://chelseawolfe.bandcamp.com/album/abyss

This album is a sublime commingling of that voice, the singer-songwriter approach, and the raw, punishing, often austere soundscapes of Industrial, Doom-laden Rock and Electronic. It just works so well. I am not someone that tends to buy into music on the strength of the singing and lyricism, and with this album I don’t need to – it sells that part (which is utterly valuable) with the complementary crushing, distorted tones of the instrumentation. This LP might not be as cerebral (or abrasive) as some Noise releases we’ve had recently (shout out to Prurient) but it is almost equally compelling on account of its accessibility, its ability to blend traditional songwriting with progressive composition.

This album kicks ass, I’m fairly certain it will be joining the ranks of top albums of the year. Although that list is becoming exorbitantly long at this point, it’s been a truly great year for music so far.

Grab Abyss off Chelsea’s Bandcamp, or at any other typical music retailer.