Having officially broken into the music scene in 2010 with The Grime and the Glow (2006’s Mistake in Parting, Wolfes’ breakup album was never officially released), Chelsea Wolfe has been receiving vast amounts of underground praise since she first arrived with her strange genre-defying sounds and neofolk approach. We take new album, Hiss Spun, into the demo room…
Screeching into life with the sound of static and feedback, Hiss Spun throws us into a sultry and seductive mix of rumbling, pulsing bass and Chelsea Wolfe’s haunting vocals. The song’s title, “Spun” is repetitively wailed, howled, and breathed throughout the song, as Wolfe throws her voice across every conceivable spectrum of her vocal range, from spectral high pitches to husky spoken word passages, whispered to the listener across the lo-fi fuzz of distorted guitar and crashing cymbals. It’s easy to hear even from the opening track how she has garnered such acclaim from the underground scene. Whilst retaining the same fury as this entry track, the tumultuous track,“Twin Fawn”, adds in the massive pace change of acoustics strums amidst the vocals before lurching into a similar, aggressive gallop.
If you’ve even so much as heard Wolfe’s name and not her music, it’s fairly likely you’ll be aware of her penchant for genre-skipping across her work. Broadly labelled as ‘experimental’ you will hear a massive range of influences across a single album. It is here, you can note the change from dark and atmospheric metal in a track such as “Spun”, to the heavy and almost grungy nature of “16 Psyche”. Having once been quoted that she wished she had the voice of someone like Kurt Cobain, but tried to make up for it with her guitar sounds, that’s easy to see here, with her masterful use of soprano vocals accompanying her distorted and raw guitar.
Taking an influence that borders on the electronic, the haunting and ethereal vocal range that Wolfe can command is weaved into an FX-enhanced, bass-led track shot through with the odd distorted guitar riff in the form of “Vex” and soon after, the haunting track, “The Culling”. It enters the soundscape like a B-side from Massive Attack, only with a darker and more nuanced approach. The addition of stranger and more eerie lyrics (“My finger in your wound”) only adds the power of the track, and the album overall. 
Although spoilt for choice, this reviewer’s favourite track of the album comes in the form of “Particle Flux”. The song is a sultry swell of bass and distortion with a repetitive and pulsing drumline, only broken by a relatively unaltered set of vocals and enhanced by subtle and welcome changes in pace as the song builds to its end.
Towards the end of the album we are met with two more minimalist tracks,“Offering” and “Static Hum”. They lean towards a dark, atmospheric flavour and focus on the vocals being placed at the fore of the production. From the complexity of some of the previous songs, it’s a welcome change to begin the end of the album.
Taking its similarity from tracks such as “Twin Fawn”, the similarly named “Two Spirit” retains the folksy, acoustic traits of the previous track, and strips away the majority of any other external influence such as electronics. It leaves us with a ghostly, gothic-folk track that you would struggle to find anywhere but with Wolfe. “Scrape” is the final song of the album and despite the previous track, it’s not going to go quietly. The song physically scrapes its way through the melody with distortion and FX layered all over the production except for with the drums. Wolfe’s vocals howl and grate their way through the discordant chords and slides of the guitar rhythm before fading off into feedback.
As eerie and strange as the album can be at points, it’s still not a bad thing, and as much as I’m bound to by the virtue of reviewing, I cannot fault the album. It’s production value is nearly flawless and Chelsea Wolfe’s approach to music is, despite heavy influence, so unique as to nearly form her own sub-genre. Simply put, you need this album in your life.
Author: Steve, Southgate store
