She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Each and every song here would sound completely at home as closing credits music for any number of fantastic horror movies. Not necessarily because of the finality of the songs, but rather because they conjure an unnameable, hideous feeling that is generally only experienced after witnessing something terrifying.

Hopeful in a deeply honest way, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She chronicles an evolution that brings out the best, most adventurous aspects of Wolfe's music.

Attempting to unpack She Reaches Out in one listen is a futile task. This sounds like the album Wolfe was always meant to make. Nothing feels forced, a natural chaos erupts around every corner as Wolfe tip-toes around dense drums and distorted tones. Underneath the dark production are some of the best songwriting moments of Wolfe’s career.

She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She finds Chelsea Wolfe at her most creative while reviving her particular, audacious and revered brand of dark storytelling. Every piece of the record finds a way to tie into the themes at its core while still pushing Wolfe’s own sound forward in earnest.

She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She is Wolfe’s best album for some time. The album’s music and vocals reflect its underlying theme well.

The album, one of Wolfe’s best, is a powerful reminder that you are good enough, strong enough and brave enough to be mighty, authentic and free.

It's yet another successful reinvention from the Californian artist who continues to be an impenetrable force, laying herself bare and rebuilding for all to see and hear.

While it’d be difficult to proclaim it her finest work, ‘She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She’ is certainly Wolfe’s most ambitious and careful-constructed album. Deliciously-dramatic in its nocturnal flair, it cracks open a whole new set of tantalising sonic possibilities for Wolfe’s and her collaborators’ future.

Ultimately, this album is a promise that as brilliantly beguiling as Chelsea Wolfe has always been, her big picture is still coming into focus.

The clarity of her voice is most appropriate for this album, which encourages trusting yourself enough to surrender to uncertainty.

While opener "Whispers In The Echo Chamber" tries too hard to startle with blasts of screaming horrorcore, her talent for a melodramatic melodic hook wins through on "Tunnel Lights"'s yearning torch-song noir and the heartbroken small-hours lament of "Everything Turns Blue". [Feb 2024, p.37]

There’s a tension in Wolfe’s music between a tendency to overdramatize or cloak her pain in gothic imagery and a genuine yearning to be heard and understood. While the former can feel facile, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She more often manages to arrive at the latter. Wolfe’s songs might avoid specific details about her actual life, but the sturm und drang coursing through them is potent and deeply felt.

Wolfe is as uncompromising a poet as she has ever been on She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, and while her disparate choices of canvas give us a bumpy ride, it’s one worth taking in good faith.