Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:00 minutes | 880 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Loma Vista Recordings

Chelsea Wolfe’s latest album, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, is a rebirth in process. It’s about how such a moment connects to our past, our present, and our future. It’s a powerfully cathartic statement about cutting ties, as well as an important reminder that healing is cyclical and circular, and not a simple linear process. As Wolfe explains, “It’s a record about the past self reaching out to the present self reaching out to the future self to summon change, growth, and guidance. It’s a story of setting yourself free from situations and patterns that are holding you back, in order to become self-empowered. It’s an invitation to step into your authenticity.

Chelsea Wolfe’s seventh album—and most circularly titled yet—is her first since 2019’s folk-focused Birth of Violence and marks the longest gap between albums so far in her career (her first six were released over a span of nine years). While one might presume that such an interregnum was the result of a paucity of ideas, instead, She Reaches finds Wolfe and her band firing on all cylinders, indulging in a more electronic (and notably less folk-indebted) approach to their doom-pop. Apparently, the songs were written in traditional band style, then “deconstructed” with the assistance of producer Dave Sitek into their final versions, making for a dense and complex melange of thudding guitars and evocative electronic treatments that render this material far more cinematically gloomy than anything Wolfe has released to this point. There are also notable nods toward “accessibility”; “House of Self-Undoing,” with its high-intensity rhythms and rockist construction, is probably as close to a hooky, windows-down anthem as Wolfe will ever get (though, of course, it does break down into an introspective, gothic section before the final climax), and the glitchy electronica of “Salt” is deceptively soothing, evoking nothing less than a trip-hop number made by a club kid’s goth cousin. While there are only 10 tracks here, She Reaches is still a remarkably diverse album, as dense and complex as it is dynamic. Wolfe’s typical approach—vulnerable but wrathful, focused but overwhelming—is in top form, as evidenced by the fact that the album is bookended by its first two singles: “Whispers in the Echo Chamber” opens the album with a jittery, immersive pummeling; “Dusk” wraps the set with richly textured and complex doom-saying. While she has lost much of the folk influences of her earlier work and homed in on the electronic flourishes and metallic aggression that’s more aligned with her dramatic approach, Wolfe is also quite capable of quieter moments that are just as impactful. “Tunnel Lights” is a prime example; a perfectly named track, it’s a relatively slow-burning number that flickers with ominous energy. It’s all unknown peril, disoriented suffering, and echo-ey drama, and is so cinematic, it will almost certainly show up in a pivotal scene in some future urban apocalypse drama. – Jason Ferguson

Tracklist:
1-01. Chelsea Wolfe – Whispers In The Echo Chamber (04:01)
1-02. Chelsea Wolfe – House Of Self-Undoing (04:23)
1-03. Chelsea Wolfe – Everything Turns Blue (04:26)
1-04. Chelsea Wolfe – Tunnel Lights (04:08)
1-05. Chelsea Wolfe – The Liminal (04:51)
1-06. Chelsea Wolfe – Eyes Like Nightshade (04:34)
1-07. Chelsea Wolfe – Salt (04:23)
1-08. Chelsea Wolfe – Unseen World (03:27)
1-09. Chelsea Wolfe – Place In The Sun (04:09)
1-10. Chelsea Wolfe – Dusk (04:34)

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