Chelsea Wolfe - The Grime And The Glow

Last year I reviewed Chelsea Wolfe's Apokalypsis. I thought it was a good release that kept my attention with surprisingly bearable female leads and its dark atmosphere. I recently refound my love for it so I decided to check out her previous release and 2010 debut, The Grime And The Glow.

It's similar in some ways, and different in many to Apokalypsis.

Sugarcoating a turd is pointless and I'll tell you right up front the production on The Grime And The Glow is shit. I'd go so far as to say the production is the top reason this album wasn't so well-received, and it gave her the 'noise' tag. I don't even mind noise rock or noise-influenced music (Ghola represent!) but The Grime And The Glow feels very inconsistent. Tracks like the "The Whys" are very lo-fi and it does have a novelty to it, but that novelty wears off about thirty seconds into the song. The mixing is weak on here too. "Fangs," has a bass sound that literally makes me cringe, and that's one of the better written tracks with a relatively 'decent' production compared to the rest of the album.

The songwriting on here isn't half as bad though, and Chelsea Wolfe does display a competence in writing decent doom-and-folk influenced rock. "Bounce House Demons" would later become the track "Demons" from Apokalypsis, and "Moses" would become my favorite Chelsea Wolfe track thanks to the redux. "Noorus" is a bending track that sports some very key-warping when the layered grooving takes a break. The Grime And The Glow is a very subtle album, although I'm not sure if that's a byproduct of the production or the songwriting. The grooves don't directly 'stick,' but they're noticeable, making the album bearable if not memorable.

Wolfe's great, woeful vocalwork is here in a less refined state. "Halfsleeper" is in my opinion her vocal apex on this album with its beautiful simplicity. Her voice harmonizes with itself to create a haunting, funeral atmosphere. This contrasts pretty actively with the bouncy opener, "Advice & Vices," which is surprisingly more upbeat and catchy. Like the majority of the album, it sounds like the whole master recording of this track fell into a vat of reverb and didn't quite make it out the same. The bonus tracks on The Grime And The Glow are listenable but that's about it. You won't be remembering them anytime soon.

Shame her debut wasn't as strong, but I guess it paved the way for Apokalypsis.

4.25 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1. Advice & Vices
2. Cousins Of The Antichrist
3. Moses
4. Deep Talks
5. Fang
6. Benjamin
7. The Whys
8. Noorus
9. Halfsleeper
10. Bounce House Demons
11. Widow
12. Gene Wilder (Bonus track)
13. Move (Bonus track)
14. You Are My Sunshine (Bonus track)

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Chelsea Wolfe - Apokalypsis

I'm generally not too fond of female vocalists. They're either a little too twangy, a little too whiny, or just all-around grating on my ears. There are a few exceptions to the rule, and I'm not talking about lame dude-growl sounding vocals like those done by the abomination in Arch Enemy, or obnoxious symphonic trash like Nightwish.

Chelsea Wolfe is one of the exceptions to the female vocalist rule. Soulful and dark, twisted yet refined, each of her songs combines elements of doom, folk, alternative, indie, and ambient rock. As the primary songwriter and singer, Chelsea Wolfe really contributes 110% on Apokalypsis. Wolfe begins the album with possessed growling on "Primal/Carnal" which shortly after transforms into "Mer," perhaps the most hook-laden track on the album. Each track follows a generally doom-esque chord progression. Distortion blurs Wolfe's voice, guitars, and the ambient noise into a sonic venture into the deep and forgotten recesses of the nature.

As a singer/songwriter, Wolfe's vocals are by far the biggest highlight on Apokalypsis. Her droning guitarwork sets the atmosphere and is a working backdrop for her winding vocal delivery. What impresses me the most is that her vocals never grate, nor do they reach melodic highs. Although they're somewhat gothic in nature, the vocals and atmosphere really work hand-in-hand to create a strong theme for the album. I often find myself humming along to the more catchy tracks on the album, like "Tracks (Tall Bodies)," "Mer," "Friedrichshain," and "Demons." However there are a few more ambient tracks on the album which in my opinion are not as enjoyable. "To The Forest, Towards The Sea" is a relatively pointless ambient outro, and "Movie Screen" is pretty dull as well. Tracks like "Moses" and "Pale on Pale" grew on me after listening a few times. Slower songs like these tend to need the room to grow a bit.

I feel like I'm cutting Chelsea Wolfe some slack solely because it's a female-fronted act that I enjoy, but when I really listen to the music there's a lot of emotion despite the semi-gothic delivery and atmosphere. Usually stuff like that falls flat on it's face, but here it's authentic, austere, and catchy. Best of all is that Apokalypsis has got a degree of heaviness to the music, which naturally as a big fan of metal and psychedelic rock appeals to me.

7.5 out of 10

Although simple, this album has a lot of re-spin value.

Tracklisting:

1. Primal / Carnal
2. Mer
3. Tracks (Tall Bodies)
4. Demons
5. Movie Screen
6. The Wasteland
7. Moses
8. Friedrichshain
9. Pale On Pale
10. To The Forest, Towards The Sea