I feel like too often “darkness” in music is more affectation than anything else. To be clear, it’s an affectation I’m not immune to – when the weather starts to cool and the air begins to chill I tend to reach for more somber, forlorn music. But there’s this rising cadre of music acts that – for better or worse – are framed in my mind as being cultivated and groomed for a very niche audience. One that’s young and entirely too emo-driven for my tastes. It’s a rare artist that can break out of that mold and straddle a more mature perceptive (I’m really showing my “old man yells at cloud” side here, sorry), and with She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She I think I’m coming around to the wavelengths Chelsea Wolfe is putting out. The “why?” and “why now?” of it all are still confusing in my mind, so accept this as a meandering trip to understand better.

This isn’t my first trip with Wolfe; I’ve tried earlier albums, notably 2015’s Abyss and the 2017 follow-up Hiss Spun. Both were fine, but occupied the synapses in my brain matter for exactly the time they were on and left without impact. I even bought Bloodmoon, thinking her style blended with the wall of sound metalcore favorites Converge put out would change my view, but that was soon put aside after a few spins. My means to catharsis doesn’t involve music like this, so that confessional, heart-on-sleeve approach wears thin more often than not if the music isn’t doing its share to carry the load.

So what is it about She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She that is so effective? It might be the production work from Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio. Even when I’m not a fan of their music, a TV On The Radio album always sounds fantastic. Here the use of electronics and noise border on industrial, and there’s a constant, shifting sense of unease that starts with the burst of static that opens “Whispers of the Echo Chamber” and doesn’t let up until the last exhalation on closer “Dusk”. Between is a rage of styles and tones, from the drilling snare that drives rocker “House of Self-Undoing” to the smothered dream that is “The Liminal”, featuring a sense of moving in reverse that is lovely. Wolfe, working again with constant companion Ben Chisholm on synths and drum programming fold in Jess Gowrie on drums and Bryan Tuleo on guitar allows the music to breathe more, and not be so mired in murk of low end frequencies. As a result even the darkest songs allow the hooks to get into you.

Songs like “Tunnel Lights” evoke classic Nine Inch Nails even as Wolfe’s lyrics embody a more folkish, introspective outlook. I’m not a lyrics guy, but there’s something about her words on this album that align to my, let’s call it Autumn Worldview™. “If you deny death, you deny life / Let it suffer, let it shine / What must be severed, left behind? What is there left to find?” I’m not going to go out and start wearing mourning gowns and read Baudelaire by candlelight with absinthe, but I’m also not going to deny the comfort of sitting on the couch with the vinyl playing and lyrics like the above in front of me, either.

Does She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She compel me to go back to Wolfe’s earlier catalog? Not sure yet; this might be the only taste I need. But it definitely reinforces the point in my head that Wolfe is an artist to be reckoned with, even if it doesn’t hit for me the same way it hits for others. I reach no catharsis with her words echoing in my mind, the thrum of her pulses matching my own. There’s probably a review that needs to be written in the future about the music that does do that for me. For now, I’m content to sink into the deep with this album and imply luxuriate in its truth, even if if doesn’t reflect mine.