CHELSEA WOLFE: THE GRIME AND THE GLOW (2010)
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; 13*) Move; 14*) You Are My Sunshine.
There is one simple reason why Chelsea Wolfe's
first-and-forgotten album is less irritating than her
officially-first-and-remembered album. By the time she got around to recording The Grime And The Glow and releasing it
on an indie label, she was already committed to Art — as in, «go into this and
try to make a difference» rather than simply do what everybody else is doing.
And in the fervor and ardor of this commitment, she decided that the
«difference» would consist of making a dark, atmospheric, melancholic record in
a lo-fi setting.
I have personally expressed my feelings about
lo-fi in many reviews, so just a brief reiteration: as far as I'm concerned,
there is one reason and one reason only to produce in lo-fi — if you really don't have the money to produce
in hi-fi. In 2010, good studio sound might be a problem in Zimbabwe, perhaps,
but in New York or California, this kind of sound is a travesty. Granted,
Chelsea's songwriting skills here are not (yet) fully developed, and she may
have needed a little something special to mask the simplicity and repetitiveness
of the melodies; but if you take a mediocre song and make it sound like total crap, where is this really going to
get you?
As long as the songs themselves are fully
arranged and feature contributions from additional musicians, things aren't too
bad: ʽAdvice & Vicesʼ, despite all the distracting white noise in the
background, has a nice weaving thing between the bass and the wailing lead
guitar going on, with the overall atmosphere reminiscent of the early Eighties'
Goth scene. But as soon as we are left on our own with just Chelsea and her
guitar, on the dashingly titled ʽCousins Of The Antichristʼ (why «cousins?»
who's the brother?), it all goes down — the strum is generic, the vocals creak
and croak with the aim of making her sound like a disembodied spirit, but
instead of contrasting with the backing vocals, they all blend in to create a
caterwauling effect. At the very least, she is not straining her voice to make
it sound particularly freaky; but the song itself is not good from the start,
and placing the singer at the bottom of a damp well does nothing to improve it.
On the slow, leaden, and seemingly desperate
ʽMosesʼ ("Moses, can you help me carry the burden?" — why «Moses»?
is it because «Jesus» would sound too banal?), she drives a simple blues-rock
riff into the ground, assisting it with an equally minimalistic organ part; the
desired effect is probably to make you experience visions of the protagonist
slowly and painfully making her way through some underground tunnel, and again,
under different circumstances I can see how it just might work, but here, it
does not (spoiler for the long road ahead: the version on her next album would
be a vast improvement).
But if you want to hear the most representative
track on the album, I suppose you have to turn your attention to ʽDeep Talksʼ —
three minutes of overdriven, border-on-the-industrial guitar clanging
accompanied by a vocalize effort that Yoko Ono (no doubt, one of the
influences) would have appreciated. No doubt, some people will like this, or, at
least, will want to spend a few hours of their time explaining why this is Art
and why this Art is so particularly relevant for the year 2010. Unfortunately,
this is more of a «gesture» than an «epiphany», and since we already live in a
post-Sonic Youth universe, it is not unless we restart our life with a totally
clean slate that I can free some space for this on my own mindshelves.
Sometimes it borders on funny, for instance,
when on ʽNoorusʼ her minimalism drives her on to borrow the riff from AC/DC's
ʽDirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheapʼ (with a few modifications, perhaps, but the song
does have an AC/DC flavor to it — except, of course, the Young brothers would
never stoop to such cruddy lows of production). Sometimes it is almost pretty —
ʽHalfsleeperʼ has all the makings of an enchanting dark folk ballad, but it
desperately needs something instead
of that background hiss to make it work. And I would love to join her in her
little demon-exorcising exercise (ʽBounce House Demonsʼ), but... well, if you
want to make something in the style of Steve Albini, why not go directly to the
source? I'm sure Steve would find it difficult to say no to a girl with bounce
house demons all around her.
Bottomline: as far as I'm concerned, this is a
rather glaring false start to a career, and what makes matters worse is that
this, unlike Mistake In Parting, is
a pretentious album — it tries to convince
us that the artist is actually trying to communicate with the spirits or
something, but it uses fairly simple, predictable, obsolete, and boring means
to do this. Thumbs
down; I would recommend skipping this altogether, since it honestly
does not even have a lot of historical interest (well, in the sense that it is,
perhaps, way too early to get genuinely interested in the long and winding
artistic biography of Chelsea Wolfe).
Not sure if you're considering 'Live at Roadburn' part of the discography (it's essential, in my opinion), but it contains a far superior version of Halfsleeper.
ReplyDeleteI just read your review, it's the first time I've heard of this artist, I'm going to listen seriously, by the way you could make reviews of laura marling albums, I promise you'll love it, I'd tell you to start with your first record, It's called Alas, I Can not Swim.
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