Hiss Spun

After years of delivering on her promise, it comes as no surprise that Hiss Spun is as good as it is. The instrumental tracks dance around Wolfe’s soaring vocals and ultimately collide with them perfectly to create a collection of songs that are a joy to listen to.

While Wolfe’s incredible vocals are the main draw, her long term collaborator Ben Chisholm deserves significant recognition too. Not only does his fuzzed-to-fuck bass make these songs feel genuinely threatening, his manipulation of sound and creation of washes and collages provides unsettling backgrounds for Wolfe to weave her magic over. Without him, the oppressive atmospherics of the album wouldn’t be nearly as effective.

Somehow, she makes gothic folk, gloomy doom and grim noise feel above ground. The odds of these kinds of sounds bubbling up into the mainstream are slim, to be sure. But on Hiss Spun, Chelsea Wolfe makes it imaginable.

Hiss Spun is a hypnotic, cyclical work that becomes transformative with repeated listens.

While not as suck your frozen heart out bleak as her last album, Abyss, Hiss Spun explores metal's darkness on a more intimate scale. [Nov 2017, p.67]

Wolfe is the epicentre of the maelstrom, a banshee wailing through songs called things like Welt and Scrape. [Dec 2017, p.94]

The shadows, as well as the sparse pinpricks of light that populate Hiss Spun suggest an uncanny landscape, one filled with strange nightmares regarding you from a distance. Which is to say the album has, incontrovertibly this time, real depth and mystery.

Truly, Chelsea Wolfe has hit upon something very heavy here--something that'll haunt your nightmares long after it ends. [7 Oct 2017, p.53]

Both fierce and fragile, Hiss Spun presents an artist in compelling control of the entire scope of her expression.

Though Hiss Spun probably won't end up as the best of her career, it may well be Wolfe's best so far.

A beautiful paradox of angsty noise and beguiling craft. [Oct 2017, p.40]

[Producer Kurt] Ballou’s signature crushing heaviness may have become a cliché in some circles, but paired with Wolfe’s beautiful voice and brilliant writing, it's a match made in heaven.

Listening to Hiss Spun is a punishing affair, but it's a rewarding one too. It's the sound of an artist not afraid to dig deep emotionally, and that challenges the listener to do so as well.

Though it may be her second consecutive album to lean heavily on metal, Hiss Spun deftly incorporates a diverse range of sounds.

Being grounded, after all, is what Wolfe was going for. That you have to work in order to appreciate what she went through to get there is what makes Hiss Spun so intriguing.