Band:	Chelsea Wolfe
Album:	Birth Of Violence
Style:	Neofolk, Experimental rock
Release date:	September 2019

01. The Mother Road
02. American Darkness
03. Birth Of Violence
04. Deranged For Rock & Roll
05. Be All Things
06. Erde
07. When Anger Turns To Honey
08. Dirt Universe
09. Little Grave
10. Preface To A Dream Play
11. Highway
12. The Storm

To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward you must go back and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.

And Chelsea Wolfe does go back. After her doom laden and distortion thick Abyss and Hiss Spun which have gotten her even more admiration from the metal crowd, it would've been natural for her to capitalize on the momentum and go into even doomier territories. That is not what happens on Birth Of Violence. After a retreat into seclusion to write and record the album, she reconnected with her folk roots, stripping away the industrial and murky riff behemoth that drowned her last albums. Backpedaling? Pretty much. Worthwhile? Absolutely.

Of course you can count me among those who were curious how she could build upon the sludgy sound crafted on Hiss Spun. I liked the singles that were released prior to the album, but I noticed the shedding of the skin that happened in the meantime. And indeed, the full listen confirmed my "fears", and I probably would've been more disappointed if the execution wasn't as spectacular as it is now. Of course that with the more folky sound, this does make the entire thing more stripped back, but don't expect it to sound like the usual one-singer-one-guitar folk albums. There are still plenty of layers of ambiance and some other instruments like drums to make the entire thing feel a lot more hypnotizing than it already was. Carefully layered and with a great production, the melancholic vibe of the sound is perfectly maintained with just enough rays of hope through the American darkness.

The great soundscape that the album has only goes so much, but it's Wolfe's voice that carries the record. Melancholic and ethereal, it's hard not to get mesmerized. But the oppressive atmosphere is still there, so much so that even with relatively catchy songs like "Deranged For Rock 'N' Roll" (who would've expected to ever hear a Chelsea Wolfe song with that name) or "Be All Things", the record still feels extremely inhospitable and will only reveal its secrets to those with a bit more patience. Even with it being more stripped back, the entire sound still feels like some maximalist folk. So much so that sometimes I wish it would've toned down a bit on the noisy background and just let the voice and guitars play in damn peace, so that it would feel as intimate as some of these songs need to feel, and the moments where that is the case feel strangely blissful. And with such a consistent melancholic mood throughout the album, I can't really make the connection with the album's title, a few other tracks I would've chosen to be the title track instead.

It's hard to tell what is in store now for Chelsea Wolfe. Will this just be a slight detour? Will she go even folkier? Will she start an indie folk band? Synthpop? But it is certain that she did pass beneath the shadow.