Since 2010, Chelsea Wolfe has released 7 studio albums, this being the 7the, we imagine she’ll be playing part of it on March 16 at Club Soda. Work on this opus began 4 years ago, a period during which the Californian reportedly stopped drinking alcohol and explored poetically and/or musically her inner struggles or those of her loved ones.
Raised on folk and country, Chelsea Wolfe has come of age through various forms of extreme expression, from gothic rock and doom metal to darkwave, dark ambient and trip hop, but without denying her original musical culture, strange as it may seem. This mix of American song forms and hard music has proved unique, and this woman has developed a very special aesthetic. A role model in its own right.
Here we are at a stage in her career where electro takes over from the guitars that are nonetheless present. The wiki profile of her recent album indicates that she has been influenced this time by Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Tricky, the Smashing Pumpkins, Björk, Madonna, Massive Attack, Low, Radiohead, TV on the Radio and even Lhasa de Sela. There’s nothing conceptual about this line-up of blue-chip artists, and Chelsea Wolfe’s take on them is far from a series of straightforward evocations.
It reaches a new peak here with the inclusion of new synthesized textures, and also by broadening its harmonic spectrum. Let’s make no mistake, these are still song forms, with consonant melodies, choruses, bridges, formidable interplay of tensions, a beginning, a development, a conclusion. So, despite the new exploratory wrappings, this repertoire is slowly but surely making its way into every available inner space.
