Chelsea Wolfe: She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She

Chelsea Wolfe writes songs that aren’t designed to hit you immediately. Songs that unravel slowly before fully making their mark, in a modern age where the album lacks the power it once had – the same modern age where art continues to be degraded at break-neck speed – it makes you wonder just how much artists like Wolfe can withstand.

The California-based songwriter has maintained a fervent following since her breakthrough 2013 release, Pain is Beauty. In many respects, it’s cult-like fandom such as Wolfe’s who act as the last line of defence in helping maintain an artist’s relevance circa 2024. But of course, the fundamental bottom line is that the songs hold up, and Wolfe’s most certainly do.

Wolfe’s shape-shifting abilities are a facet she rarely gains plaudits for. Since Pain is Beauty, it’s been a decade where her songs have morphed into different shapes and meaning as time moves on, starting with the misty vortex of Abyss (2015) and the crunching anxiety of Hiss Spun (2017), through to the acoustic-led majesty in what is perhaps Wolfe’s greatest work, Birth of Violence (2019).

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Since Birth of Violence, Wolfe formed the gritty, hardcore/ punk duo alongside Jess Gowrie in Mrs. Piss, releasing their 2020 debut, Self-Surgery, as well as joining forces with Converge two years later for the acclaimed release, Bloodmoon. Last year saw her expand further afield, working with Tyler Bates for the X film score.

Weaving the threads of electronic, metal and folk into a rich tapestry has always provided interesting results. Wolfe has forged a career playing between the lines and dispensing the kind of dirge-y marginal metal in a sound world only she inhabits. And with the help of David Sitek (TV On the Radio), she returns with her Loma Vista debut, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She.

In the lead-up to its release, Wolfe spoke of sobriety and trying to untie many of life’s knots, which are the themes that underpin She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She. Take the razor-sharp opening gambit, Whispers in the Echo Chamber, as Wolfe sings, “I’ve been punished I’ve been blessed / Surrounded by living ghosts, you see / I thought I had to swallow them before they swallowed me / But you only know the one I’ve been.” One of the many vignettes that prove crucial to this story.

As always, Wolfe shifts sonically with the grace of a warm spirit. On House of Self-Undoing, there’s a mystique that sees her moving away from her alt-metal allies to the transcendental sonics of kindred spirits in wait, Bonnacons of Doom.

Meanwhile, Everything Turns Blue sees Wolfe exploring the cold empty reaches of space. A song whirring with morbid soundscapes as she recounts a story of breaking free from toxic relationships. On Tunnel Lights and Salt, Wolfe channels her inner-Beth Gibbons, her voice charging out in front of the mix with an eeriness crafted from a bottomless torrent.

The gloom continues with The Liminal. Wolfe hasn’t sounded so fragile, emerging from a fog of synths and subtle sound collages (“Nothing dies, but nothing thrives / In this world” and “I’m in your dreams, I’m in your song / Now everybody sings along”). The kind of passages that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Abyss.

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The frenzied rush of Eyes Like Nightshade is shorn up by longtime bandmate and collaborator, Ben Chisolm, who has spent years engineering the bleak dreadscapes for Wolfe’s ghostly narratives. However, on Place in the Sun the pair defiantly flip the script in what is the pop song that never was. A beautiful, spirited performance like a sermon delivered across the high seas. While Wolfe spends much of her time wrestling with demons during She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, this is the first glimmer of hope.

And it carries through to Dusk, as Wolfe finishes with a song that is arguably the best she’s written. Not only the album’s lead track but its true outlier, Wolfe leans into her past with a pummeling dirge-rock assault that sends shivers down the spine. While the placing of Dusk may be met with dismay, its message ties together the story, as Wolfe declares, “I will run through the fire to get to you.”

It’s a hope that we rarely hear from the songwriter, and through sobriety and self-work, there’s a cleansing quality to She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She. An album that won’t immediately sinks its hooks in, but with time it soon becomes evident that Wolfe is seeing through the lens clearer than she ever has. Delicacy and nuance have always been Chelsea Wolfe’s strongest traits, but here there is a new vigour, a shedding of those “thousand skins” she recounts in Whispers in the Echo Chamber. She really hasn’t sounded so decisive.

She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She is out now via Loma Vista. Purchase from Bandcamp.