CHELSEA WOLFE - BIRTH OF VIOLENCE

While Chelsea Wolfe's forays into electronic music and metal have frequently been thrilling, the aching beauty of her acoustic-based music remains special. After reaching a peak of heaviness with 2017's Hiss Spun, she swings the pendulum back with Birth of Violence, an album that evokes, and embellishes on, the doomy folk of her earliest albums.

As she proved on the excellent Unknown Rooms, the gentler side of Wolfe's music isn't any less powerful. With its drifting, smoky acoustic guitars and whispers, "American Darkness" evokes the shell-shocked aftermath of a battlefield (as well as Wolfe's own weariness after lengthy tours in support of her previous album). Here and throughout Birth of Violence, Wolfe's misty greys are just as haunted and intense as the pitch blacks of Hiss Spun

Tracklisting

1. The Mother Road
2. American Darkness 
3. Birth of Violence 
4. Deranged for Rock & Roll
5. Be All Things 
6. Erde 
7. When Anger Turns to Honey 
8. Dirt Universe 
9. Little Grave 
10. Preface to a Dream Play 
11. Highway 
12. The Storm