“She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She” – Chelsea Wolfe

Album: She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Artist: Chelsea Wolfe

Year: 2024

Genre: Industrial Rock, Gothic Rock

Grade: B+

Chelsea Wolfe has always luxuriated on the sunless side of alternative: gothic rock, experimental noise, neofolk, dark wave, doom metal, etc. Her 2024 album, curiously titled She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, is a downward spiral into all-enveloping claustrophobic industrial music. Even though the record is rooted in depression, her art is cathartic — Wolfe’s best album since Abyss in 2015.

The electronica beats and heavy riffs are a perfect match for her whispery soprano vocals, while the lyrics are imagistic in the ways that all good goth should be: tears, nightshade, dusk, BDSM. Even if the album doesn’t vary the sound too much from song to song (She Reaches Out ranges from Reznor-inspired rockers to Siouxsie-inspired elegies), you have to credit Wolfe for sticking to her vision — this is a very cohesive album.

But the best part — aside from the stunning production — is the fact that Wolfe doesn’t wallow: this is the rare goth album that is somehow uplifting, maybe even fun. As a singular piece of work, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She is triumphant and purifying.

NOTES & CHORDS

• The metal riffs at the end of “Whispers in the Echo Chamber” remind me of Porcupine Tree. Not that Wolfe is paying homage to or even necessarily influenced by Steven Wilson; just wanted to note the perceived similarities.

• Darkwave can be uplifting, too: the LP was inspired by Wolfe achieving sobriety. Lyrically, she embraces her dark past while recognizing “that shit does not define me anymore.”

• I’d wager that the best songs are at the immediate start of the album, with Wolfe’s industrial goth rock fully engrossing the listener right off the bat. The lack of variation starts to wear thin as the album approaches the end, but the closing “Dusk” is a perfect capstone to all that came before. The guitar solo at the end is a great grand finale.

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