CHELSEA WOLFE - The Dark

Every album can tell in detail the story of a musician's life, their recent experiences, their joys and their failures. In the case of Chelsea Wolfe, after freeing herself from alcohol dependency (which gave rise to her penultimate album, "She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She"), today a new kind of liberation has taken hold: freedom from the darkness, passing through it to find the light again, putting herself back at the center after a period in which the needs of others had become more important than her own.
"The Dark" is thus a mirror of the present, but one that looks back to the past — it's no coincidence that the Sacramento artist has embraced simplicity again here (as we already discussed in a recent article). After the electronic explorations of her previous work, the new songs mark a return to instruments: they often start with acoustic guitar, voice and piano, before exploding further on, when the clouds begin to discharge their electricity.

From the cover art alone, you can sense something more sophisticated, more polished, as if the project's more accessible side were trying to push its way more forcefully into the gothic-folk fabric that has always defined this sound. That's what happens on the single "Cold", a linear, clean and elegant calling card, ahead of the alt-rock shadings of "Seethe" and the more tortuous "Humours", a passage where Chelsea Wolfe's identity once again probes the depths, recalling the best moments of "Pain Is Beauty" and "Abyss".
But "The Dark" also connects to the sparks of "Hiss Spun", since we find here once again the collaboration of Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens Of The Stone Age, this time guesting on the propulsive "Swallower". Similar sensations recur further on, first with the restless "Turn The Key" and then with the doomgaze of "Death Is Not The End", one of the album's high points.

The record often makes room for a delicacy with pop glimmers: from the less effective "Halo" to the relaxed folk of the title track (also passing through "I'm Not There" and the closing "Dancer In The Sky"), Chelsea Wolfe opts for lightness, almost as if winking at an audience less devoted to experimentation or to darkness tout court. That's why, even while recycling plenty of debris from her past, "The Dark" refreshes the formula with a simpler, more direct language, aided by a production not particularly inclined to sully the record's overall brightness.

Ultimately, this is a fine comeback that deserves to be appreciated both in its more elaborate shadings and in its more easy-going approach (the songs' average length hovers around four minutes). The perfect oxymoron is thus achieved: dark in name, yet brighter and less gloomy than it might seem in the end result — this is the new album from the Californian artist, whose vocal performance remains, once again, on a superior level.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

25/08/2026