Abyss is out now
Chelsea Wolfe’s newest album is officially out today, available on all digital and streaming platforms. Pick up a physical copy in stores now, or order online on our stores – US $ which ships worldwide or UK £ which ships to EU.
Chelsea Wolfe’s has US and EU tours in support of this new album – see all dates and buy tickets HERE.
See what people are saying about the album below.
“Wolfe has found a way to remain backed by candelabra and decked in minimalist corpse paint and still locate pop melody alongside the bombast. The sultry ballad “Simple Death” is dark, but it’s also gorgeous and catchy: Wolfe is not simply going heavier for heavier’s sake, she’s mastering her craft, writing songs that you remember immediately, and that you’ll find yourself humming now and then. The bigger sound is what the source material, her sleep/dream issues, needed. Which brings to mind that line about letting your hair grow as you get old, of not changing your course. We’re all frail and imperfect, and that’s fine. But instead of inventing a persona or finding an easier way, Wolfe went deep into herself, doubled down on the horrors of life, and came back with a bleak, beautiful masterpiece—she kept going, especially when it started to hurt.” – Pitchfork
“Chelsea Wolfe’s sound may not be “heavy” in the traditional sense, but there’s something so abrasive about the arrangements on Abyss that detuned guitars aren’t required to deliver crushing music. Songs like “Iron Moon” mingle sludgy instrumentation and cacophonous noise with Wolfe’s cathartic caterwaul, while the electronic-tinged “Grey Days” adopts a tone as haunting as it is seductive. But no matter how aggressive the instrumentation, the music always manages to push things forward, as showcased by the avant-orchestral finale, ‘The Abyss.’” – Revolver
“There’s a vast landscape in Abyss, but most times it’s too dark to be certain of what you see. That wavering imagery, an intentional creative choice, gives the album room to swell with personalized monsters. The tormented piano melody of “The Abyss” pierces the delicate wind blowing in the background, setting up the score for any scarring horror film of the future, complete with nervous fiddling on the violin. Now more than ever, Wolfe’s deathly gloom matches her music succinctly. Abyss terrifies from start to finish, the haunting work of a twisted genius in her prime.” – Consequence of Sound
“Heartbreak and darkness are the threads that run through Wolfe’s diverse-yet-distinctive discography. They’re never far behind her. If anything, Abyss chases them, with a tenderness that understands the beauty to be captured therein.” – NPR Music
“Her best work yet, by far, which is saying something already…In the end, it’s what stays with you of Abyss that really matters, it’s the images you take from this plunge that define the lasting power of this music…something from Abyss will stay with you, something from it will change you. And that is a feat that not many albums can claim.” – Terrorizer, Album of the Month Review
“Some albums introduce themselves, and the sonic world they inhabit, gradually, unfolding like the opening of a play or film, offering sweeping views of what to expect over the next hour. Other records take a more direct approach, dropping listeners right into a world of exciting, tantalising riffs and melodies. And then there are records like Abyss, where listeners aren’t so much dropped into a sonic world as bludgeoned within an inch of their life and left reeling for the next 56 minutes. It’s a stunning, thrilling record and one that becomes more and more rewarding with each subsequent listen.” – The 405
“Density, weight and punishing intensity threaten to entirely submerge Chelsea Wolfe’s fourth album in a cloak of gothic camouflage. But peer behind the veneer and what do you encounter? Rather than the banshee figure one might expect, Abyss portrays a skilled songwriter at the peak of her game, capable of composing wonderfully harmonious, country-tinged laments – albeit drowning them in outlandish studio trickery and effects.” – The Skinny
“The music of Chelsea Wolfe is a lush cacophony of drones, dirges, and dark beauty that has proven to be quite transcending with recent TV spots in hits shows such as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. The heady mixture of shoegaze, industrial, and doom metal combined with Chelsea’s fragile but commanding vocals creates a uniform wall of sound all it’s own. Abyss, the singer-songwriter’s fifth album and third overall for Sargent House records, is a funeralesque tour-de-force of raw emotion that impressively melds a pop charm into each aching track.” – Soundblab
“The depth of the arrangements sets Abyss even farther apart from—and ahead of—Wolfe’s past recordings. The beat-laden highlights of Pain Is Beauty provided a more stripped down precursor, but Wolfe gets even more comfortable with noise and volume, juxtaposing her gently melancholy vocals against a claustrophobic atmosphere of grind and pulse.” – Treble Zine
“What makes Abyss so wonderfully gloomy/gloomily wonderful is Chelsea’s mastery of conveying emotional states that our nightmares can conjure. Anxiety, despair, and pining are all laced within the subconscious mind; and Wolfe has brought these feelings to light and made us feel the most vulnerable. That deep emotional affliction that is conveyed in Abyss is what makes the album such an exceptional piece of music. It is not very often an album can make a listener comfortable with susceptibility to their own emotions.” – The Amalgam
“Wolfe’s greatest weapon is her voice, which is ethereal and haunting, yet has the power to stand out against the unearthly sounds that fill the album. Wolfe employs a pallette of strings, synthesizers, deeply distorted guitars, and a menacing bass sound that hits you in the guts. Many of the tracks on the album hew to a similar pattern: a simple, stark verse, where Wolfe’s voice stands almost alone, followed by an explosion of a chorus. It’s a simple formula, but it works perfectly here. And the reason is that Wolfe has a complete mastery of the sound she is trying to achieve. Nothing is out of place. Nothing is accidental. Each sound is calculated to produce a desired effect. That may sound stifling, but it isn’t. This is a living, breathing album that moves with the stark menace of a perfect predator.” – Reverb Press
“The visceral personal details and graphic authenticity of the singer-songwriter are characteristics which Wolfe has been adopting more and more into her art as of late.Abyss marks an emotional lull in her career, acting as the tumultuous aftermath of Pain Is Beauty, channelling the viciousness of her early output, but feeling especially singular. As the odd-one-out in her catalogue, Abyss is Wolfe’s most emotionally direct, with unequivocal mourns for lost lovers summoning the titular abyss and beckoning its maw with each overcast delivery. Until finally, you are swallowed, and subjected to the nightmare Wolfe describes in “Simple Death”, where you are screaming, but you can’t wake up.” – Drunken Werewolf
“…feeling haunted is the ultimate feeling that Abyss delivers, whether it be through samples of people screaming, violin trills or some awesome doom metal riffs. It’s a twisted piece of work that will leave you feeling a sense of desolation and fear much greater than many heavier bands that Chelsea Wolfe takes inspiration from, and though it may concern dreams, once you hear this album, falling asleep is the last thing you’ll be able to do.” – Subba Cultcha